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fellowshippers2007-07-05 09:57 pm
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Entry tags:
Beyond Design 22
TITLE: Beyond Design Limitations
CHAPTER: Twenty-two: Forging Bonds
AUTHOR: Pecos – PecosPhil@sprintmail.com
WEBSITE: http://www.chimerafic.com
BETA: Namarie120, the brave
RATING: Varies by chapter. This one is PG-13
DISCLAIMER: I don’t make the toys, I’m only
playing with them. No money made, nor
disrespect intended. This is FICTION
WHAT IS IT?: RPS / AU
Sequel to ‘Prophecy: Destiny & Design’
which can be found on my website
WHO’S IN IT?: Sean Bean, Orlando Bloom,
Johnny Depp, Viggo Mortensen and other
actors from ‘The Lord of the Rings’, ‘Pirates
of the Caribbean’, ‘Hidalgo’ and others
FEEDBACK: remember the golden rule, (please!)
NOTE: Please forgive any intentional or
unintentional abuse of facts or history.
Story takes place in early 2002
Beyond Design Limitations
Chapter Twenty-two: Forging Bonds
Elijah
Stretching and yawning, Elijah cracked an eye and tried to find an alarm clock. He went up on one elbow to see over Dominic, and realized unhappily it was still too early by Los Angeles standards. He kissed Dom’s shoulder and struggled out from under the stained duvet to go pee. Elijah almost drank his contacts, which were swimming in a glass on the bathroom counter, but realized his mistake in time and went to the kitchen to find a different glass. Once there, he decided to make coffee.
“Hmmm, coffee,” Elijah moaned aloud, finding the crumpled foil bag. Guatemalan…Dom still had a shred of taste when it came to his beverages of choice. The coffee maker was a generic affair, with the world’s most badly stained carafe, but it should do the trick.
The machine chugged and hissed and started to tick like a bomb, then a heavenly aroma started to rise. Elijah rummaged through the cabinets, hoping he would be able to find enough to eat to delay their need to leave the apartment for at least a couple of hours. They had shared messy, urgent sex the night before, with blurted demands and selfish moments of one-sided gratification. He hoped maybe they could engage in something a trifle more romantic in the light of day…maybe a bit more ‘making love’ and less ‘animals rutting’. The rutting was nice, to be sure, but Elijah wanted to think maybe he had something a bit deeper going on with Dom than just the needs of their respective libidos.
He found a bag of Fig Newtons hard enough to bang out Morse code, and thought they would be salvageable dunked in hot coffee. Good enough. Elijah rifled through a pile of papers on the counter and found a few watercolors that had probably been set aside to dry, and then buried. He liked Dom’s art, although the artist himself was always very self-deprecating. The beach scenes were the best, loads of sunsets and dreamy surfing tableaus, but somehow the colors were frequently off, with angry reds in the distance and slashes of black beneath the waves. There was a carefully rendered sketch of an apparently dead gull resting on a bed of coastal seaweed. The beak gaped open and empty eye sockets had been artfully portrayed.
“Somebody around here needs a vacation,” Elijah said to himself, putting that one back on the bottom of the stack. He poured himself a cup of the now steaming coffee and went looking for milk and sugar. Squinting at the carton, he made sure it was safe, and then found the sugar in a jar labeled ‘cocaine!’ with cheery mice doing back-flips on the hand-drawn label. He took his first happy sip and picked up the next jar on the counter, noticing that the lid had been poked full of holes to make an impromptu shaker. He unscrewed it and tipped it toward his face to see what was inside. The lid lifted with a sticky, tearing sound. A sudden darting movement at the bottom of the jar took a fraction of a second to register, and then Elijah slammed the lid back down on the jar and twisted hard.
Then he screamed.
He screamed loud and long, just like his sister Hannah would at the latest gory slasher flick.
Dom rushed into the kitchen a few moments later, only to find Elijah across the room, perched on the edge of the sink, hyperventilating and shaking his hands wildly, like he’d touched something hot. Unable to compose relevant words into a meaningful sentence, Elijah just raised a trembling finger to point at the jar where it lay on its side, rocking gently.
“Witchy!” Dom blurted, hurrying over to check the jar’s occupant. “Witchy…baby…did he scare you? Oh, my beauty…don’t be frightened….”
“Fuck!” Elijah finally managed to blurt. “Fuck…FUCK!”
“Poor baby…he didn’t mean to yell at you….”
“That’s…that’s a fucking BLACK WIDOW SPIDER, you sick bastard! Deadly, Dom! Deadly poisonous!”
Dom turned an indignant glare on his boyfriend. “You knocked her all over the place! Her web’s a mess!
“You…you…” Elijah stammered, gaining speed as his brain re-engaged at last. “You are SO going to have to see a psychiatrist, Dominic Monaghan!”
Mickey
He was in a foul mood. First the babysitters had just moved outside his door, instead of leaving. After he’d demanded to speak to a superior, they had changed crews and relocated to the waiting room at the end of the hall, but it was obvious that, for whatever reason, Mickey Kostmayer was not to be trusted to be alone in Rome. These dopes were obviously the ‘C’ string of the local players, and he’d have no problem slipping them – once he was mobile – but of course he was nowhere near mobile yet. Shuffling walks with a portable IV unit didn’t make for much of an escape risk.
Then the doctor had ripped him a new asshole for planning to leave the next day. He got ten rounds of ‘what part of bleeding to death do you not grasp?’ from an otherwise very pretty lady trauma specialist, delivered through a nun interpreter with a mustache. The interpreter was not very pretty. He’d finally told the doctor that he’d seen more oozing, bleeding, gushing wounds than he’d care to remember, and he could take care of himself. She told him he was a ‘shithead’ – direct quote from Quasimodo – and if he wanted to die please be sure not to make a mess on the street. The people of Rome cared about their streets. There was a definite flounce when the doctor left, followed by the ‘eye of doom’ and an unmistakable gesture from the interpreter. The Pope would not have been pleased.
Word obviously spread quickly that they were washing their hands of this ungrateful loser, and all of the nurses started giving him the cold shoulder. The ones in habits muttered about ‘praying for his soul’ – he understood that phrase even in Italian. After that it became increasingly hard to ask for pain meds, and harder to admit that he might still need them.
Sitting up stiffly, Mickey went through the paperwork that had been brought to him: the crime scene reports and statements that the ‘Company’ had assembled, augmented by what the local police had gathered. He also got back a translation of the medical records he’d bought off the guards at Nu’s ‘hospital’. By the time Sean and Rho returned that night, Mickey was frothing. He insisted that they take a ‘walk’, and the three men found a small, deserted break room used by the nurses, behind only one locked door. Mickey launched into his lecture immediately.
“The two guys killed at the scene where I got run down were local criminals. No obvious connection to any intelligence services that I may have pissed off in the past, but it’s quite possible they were hired to do it. One of them had worked for the French, and there’s a branch of French Military Intelligence that’s still pretty pissed at me over something that happened in Nicaragua a long time ago. I’m willing to think that they were just opportunists until I hear otherwise.”
Sean was listening to him intently, but Rho was restless, pacing the room. He opened the refrigerator and found the nurse’s lunches, as well as a supply of puddings and ice cream meant for the patients. “Can I have one of these?” Rho asked Sean.
“Go ahead,” Sean told him, distracted. “We skipped dinner, looking for the kid.”
“You might be glad you didn’t find him when I tell you more,” Mickey admitted. “The unlucky hoodlums were killed with Russian hand-to-hand tactics, old KGB stuff, very dirty, very quick. One had a knife that was driven into his brain through his eye, while his own hand was still on the blade. They other had a crushed testicle and was killed with a blow to the face that rammed the bones and cartilage of his nose into his brain.”
Rho stopped fiddling with the pudding, sinking into a chair. “Who could do that sort of thing?”
“Your new brother, Pepper,” Mickey said, looking at him meaningfully. “There’d been at least five deaths at his old ‘mental home’ attributable to similar techniques. Took a while to find the connection, but apparently there was an old-guard KGB field agent who’d been ‘retired’ to the hospital after losing his objectivity in Chetchnia. The guy got to know your boy one way or another. Maybe he used him for something, maybe they were actually friends, but I think he taught your kid a few ways to defend himself. These aren’t the kind of things that just anybody picks up in a hospital, even one that’s more realistically called a jail. I suspect that Nu was able to kill pretty much anybody he had to, but if he had your moral constitution he probably didn’t want to do it.”
By ‘your’ Mickey had obviously meant the clones. Rho stared at him over a spoonful of chocolate pudding. “I couldn’t kill anybody.”
“Neither could Gamma,” Sean said softly. “But at the very end…at the end…he did.”
Mickey knew he should tell them about the avenging clone who was apparently wiping out the researchers and Brotherhood of Hiram people, but he was in too much discomfort from his recent wounds, and it was difficult to sit in the hard chair. “My point here is that when I hit the pavement, Nu got up and protected me. He’s not just a lost puppy. He’s a junkyard puppy with a lethal bite. You two need to realize that if you’re going to keep trying to find him.”
“We’re going to find him,” Rho said with utter certainty. “We’ll find him here in Rome, and we’ll take him somewhere safe.”
Sean’s eyes darted from one of them to the other. He didn’t seem to have anything to say.
Orlando
“You can put it by the window,” he told the room service waiter, wrinkling his nose at the unexpected odors of hot food. The waiter rolled the ornate table into place and quickly set everything up, opening the curtains, pulling a chair over and placing it for maximum comfort and view, arranging cutlery. “I didn’t order any breakfast,” Orlando said, confused.
“The overnight order card was left on your door, sir. We pick those up at 3am. Maybe you were tired, and forgot?”
Maybe the driver from Disney had done it. Or Aileen…or somebody else who was supposed to be minding him? Orlando had no idea. He remembered tardily that the waiter should be tipped. The guy was obviously lingering just a tiny bit, fiddling with the single red sweetheart rose in a tiny vase. Orlando scrambled for his cash, and came up with colorful East Caribbean bills. “Oh, uh, this is all I have.”
“Don’t worry about it, sir. It’s our pleasure to serve you here at the Chateau Marmont.” The waiter bowed and started to leave.
“I’ll catch you up later!” Orlando promised the closing door. He turned to look at the garish array of silver warmers, carafes of colorful juices, and miniature condiments. It was all very pretty. His stomach grumbled enthusiastically, and he lifted a domed lid. Sliced bananas in cream, just the way he loved them. The next one held an egg white omelet with fresh tomatoes, and next to that was a bowl of grapefruit wedges with a sprinkling of brown sugar. He poured himself a steaming cup of Earl Grey and sat down. Once he started to eat it was impossible to stop.
The breakfast request card was underneath a plate, along with a bill that made him choke on the freshly-squeezed orange juice. Fortunately, the charges had been credited to the room, with a notation that Disney Corp. was covering all expenses. He picked up the card that had been hung on his door some time last night. Every single one of Orlando’s favorite breakfast foods had been checked, with one he really disliked crossed out. The notation to put brown sugar on the grapefruit slices was written on the back, as were instructions about what kind of cream to pour on the bananas and a request that the tea be loose leaf.
A creeping sensation shot up Orlando’s neck. He hadn’t filled out this card, but there it was, in his handwriting, with everything he would want to eat, prepared exactly the way he would have wanted it prepared.
It was beyond creepy. It was scary.
Viggo
He paced, literally wringing his hands, back and forth across the gaudy carpet of the frequent flier’s lounge. Stranded businessmen sprinkled the room, talking on phones and tapping madly on their laptop computers. The wind shook the big glass windows that would normally frame a view of planes lifting off, heading to all compass points. Angry clouds crowded the darkened sky, and rain pelted the runways. O’Hare Airport was suffering a computer crash in the control tower, and some of the worst weather Chicago had seen in years. All flights were grounded.
Viggo’s heart felt like a stone in his chest. He pulled out his own cell phone once again and hit redial, but Orlando still didn’t answer. The familiar voice asked him to leave a message, and Viggo snapped his cell shut. There was no reason to panic. There was no proof that Orlando was in danger. There was no justification for scaring the kid…none at all.
Was there?
Rho
He sat on the sun-warm and ancient stone of the Spanish Steps, near the Keats museum, squinting into shadows and trying to figure out where his ‘brother’ could be in this huge, chaotic city. Young men were soliciting gullible female tourists with roses and lyrical nonsense, and people clustered around the old boat fountain like survivors of a crash in the desert. Nothing Rho had ever experienced had prepared him for a place like this. Even London had seemed somehow smaller, less frightening, his exposure coming in bits and pieces, with Sean there to reassure him every step of the way. But this place…this was madness! His heart clenched in his chest, and he felt every bit as alone and frightened as Nu must be feeling.
That was the moment when he got a strange sensation of seeing double. It was like there was another place laid on top of the Piazza di Spagna – another side to reality. He could see crowds and statues and light and dark places which weren’t actually in front of him. He could see a long, angular, stony finger thrusting accusatorially at the sky. It was a pointed tower like they’d seen outside Saint Paul’s…in the place where Sean had been so quiet.
“The pointy thing,” Rho mumbled, trying to focus exclusively on that overlay of images, rather than on the real things around him.
“Aye, what?” Sean mumbled, not bothering to look down. He was hiding beneath a baseball cap, and he spoke quietly outside because people could recognize him by his voice. They had no time to bother with other people.
“The thing outside the church. The pointy…you said it was from Egypt. You said they’d stolen it, and stuck their cross on the top.”
“Obelisk, Colt. Maybe ‘stolen’ was a bit harsh.” Sean sounded interested now. “You mean Saint Peter’s Square?” He sounded amused that Rho would be unfamiliar with the landmark they’d visited that morning.
“Obelisk…but different. Somewhere different…” Rho squinted harder, but he lost the second reality. He clamped his eyes shut, trying to retain any details he could. “Quick, Sean, find me pictures of places in Rome! Places with a…an…obelisk!”
He could hear Sean start, stepping away a few feet, then hurrying in a different direction. Then he was talking to someone, using his few words of Italian. He was trying to borrow something, apologizing, then Sean rushed back to him and pushed something hard and smooth into Rho’s hands. “I’ve got a guidebook! Can you find it?”
“Look for obelisks,” Rho begged, still unwilling to open his eyes. He didn’t want to see the chaotic and colorful scene around them; he needed to stay with his brother, with Nu, wherever that was.
Sean flipped through the pages quickly. “Here’s the one at the Vatican, the one we saw this morning.
“No, it’s different. There’s…there’s statues at the bottom.”
“Lions? Or people statues?”
“People…weird people. Water.”
The tourists who’d ‘loaned’ Sean their guidebook had arrived, and were starting to interrupt. Rho could hear the pages flipping quickly. “Sorry, just a moment, really…just need to…Rho, look here.”
Rho peeked down at the picture held over his lap. The face of a stern building was shadowed by a smooth, pointy spire, rising from the middle of a very elaborate fountain.
“That’s it!” he shouted, grabbing the book. “He’s there! He’s there right now!”
Orlando
Aileen had alternately loved and grilled him all the way to the Disney Studios. They had to attend a meeting, then Orlando would be going out to the just-completed sets. There was also going to be a new place for him to stay after that, some sort of a condo arrangement. It was supposed to be fully furnished, and even stocked with food and his belongings by the time he got there. He’d have a rental car at his disposal as well, and there would likely be time to visit friends around LA. He wondered who might want to see him.
His agent was upbeat and cheerful about everything, especially the latest offers. She’d been quite surprised to have received an inquiry from Wolfgang Peterson about the new ‘Troy’ movie. Aileen had thought it would be another small role, but when the script arrived it was for one of the leads, Paris. She wanted to ask for at least ten million in US dollars. Orlando didn’t care, although he was very pleased to hear that Eric Bana and Sean Bean were likely to be in the movie with him. The mention of Brad Pitt made him nervous…but it was all just a maybe anyhow.
He was feeling happier than he had since Viggo had left, maybe because he’d had a good meal and it hadn’t made him sick. He was as close to rested as he got anymore, and all the people at Disney were extremely nice. Geoffrey had reportedly arrived that morning grumpy and had left already, planning to meet them on set. Johnny was there, bright-eyed and ready to go, feeling the studio’s full support for the first time since they’d locked horns over the whole ‘gay rock star pirate’ issue. The meeting went well, and Aileen eventually departed with a smile on her face.
Maybe he wasn’t going to be as lonely as he had been on the island. He told one of the Disney girls that he’d never been to the theme park, and she said they could set him up with passes any time he wanted. Orlando wondered if the Hobbits would like to go. Sean’s wife and kids too. He couldn’t imagine Viggo enjoying coaster rides and mouse-shaped ice creams, but maybe he could be talked into it when he got back from Morocco. Viggo was working for Disney too…he could probably get his own free passes.
Orlando’s face was scanned by a weird computer, sorta like some of the things they’d done at WETA, which was apparently going to be for making toys. Then a limousine drove him and Johnny across town to the new sound stages. Johnny asked them to stop at some restaurant, and introduced Orlando to a ‘tofu burger’. He felt so full after that he fell asleep in the car while it waded thorough traffic. Johnny let Orlando lay his head in his lap, and he dreamed that they were on a boat again.
Sean
The taxi skidded to a stop near a crowd of tourists heading through a narrow passageway to the Bernini fountain. Rho burst out the door and took off. Sean paused only long enough to shove the promised bills into the driver’s hand, and then he was off after the young man. Rho ran hard across the uneven pavement, eyes on the obelisk, hands outstretched like he was trying to feel his brother’s presence. Sean stumbled to a stop some way behind him, expectantly scanning the faces of everyone around them.
“Nicky!” Rho shouted, slowing to a standstill, turning in a circle. “Nicky!”
Sean saw the southern fountain, the Moro, beyond a milling group, and he took a couple of steps in that direction. There were only a few men standing alone, and none of them had the right height and build. Children were racing through the piazza, chasing pigeons and laughing. Booths and tables had been set up anywhere there was shade, selling a variety of trinkets and goods. Voices rose, speaking a multitude of languages.
“Nicky!” Rho yelled again, loud enough to be heard over the rushing water of the Four Rivers Fountain and the mass of people. “Nick…Nu, it’s Rho!” He lifted his face to the cloudy sky and spun in a slow circle, showing himself to everyone who stared at the crazy yelling man. Someone shot an insult at him in Italian. Sean wanted to warn Rho, but he didn’t know why.
A solitary figure detached itself from the shadows of the Church of Sant’Agnese, coming into the light with small, cautious steps. Rho froze, then turned to him, mouth open, saying nothing. Sean dared to move toward them, entranced, utterly ignoring everyone and everything else in the bustling square. Rho raised his hands, and Nu came forward faster. Then they were embracing, and it felt like the entire world paused for just a moment. Nu cupped Rho’s face in his dirty hands, and Rho mirrored the gesture with Nu. Their eyes darted everywhere, constantly returning to meet twin orbs. “Nicky,” Rho whispered in affirmation.
By then Sean had come as close as he could, and he stared at the twins in amazement. Nu’s drastically short hair, the bandaged hand, and the bare feet made him look like a crazy man. Rho’s gorgeous face glowed with an emotion close to rapture.
“Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta,” Rho whispered. “Epsilon, Zeta, Eta.…”
“Theta,” Sean said softly, needing to touch this moment himself, needing to assure that it was real. He opened his mouth to continue the list, but Nu’s eyes turned and met his ---
--- and Sean Bean’s world spun away. His heart skipped a beat, then the next. He fell down, into those eyes, and he was lost in another world…images swirled and darted, bright flashes, feelings so quick and intense they felt like physical blows:
Loneliness, fear, anger, hopeless despair.
Being hit, and dragged, and held down, helpless.
Being ignored so consistently he thought maybe he was disappearing. He was becoming invisible.
His face submerged in water, on the verge of drowning, hands clawing at the slick sink to the sound of manic laughter.
Days and weeks of drugged haze.
Trying to make crude overtures of friendship, and having them thrown back in his face.
Angry looks, lustful looks, cruel words.
The first time he was raped, the shame and pain and terror so raw that Sean’s own knees buckled.
The first time that someone reached out and took his hand in friendship.
The first time that he hit back; the feeling of flesh giving way beneath his fist.
The feeling of triumph when he finally got revenge…and the hopelessness of realizing how pointless and hollow his victory really was.
The first time he took someone else’s life, the convulsing body falling away so heavily, lifeless and empty…
Sean Bean’s own body lay limp on the sun-warmed stones of Rome, staring up at an empty sky, his mind reeling with too many things to contain. He didn’t know who he was or where he was, and had forgotten to breathe. Then someone took his hand, and the world went black and slid away from view.
Orlando
He was trying to find his trailer in the row of identical ones crammed nose to tail in the alley between monstrous sound stages. Geoffrey, Keira, Johnny, Gore…the signs were printed with cheery script on clean white cards. The row ended. He stood there with his script pages in his hand, feeling stupid.
“’Round the corner, mate,” said a cheery Australian voice.
Orlando looked where he was pointing and saw the back of yet another squat luxury hut. “I knew that,” he said in a teasing tone.
“I knew you knew,” Rollie countered breezily, turning to go about his business.
“Rollie,” Orland called after him. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Uh, sure, mate. Gotta run this box of squibs over to the crew, can it wait for five minutes?”
“I’ll be in my trailer,” he said with a grin. “Over there. See?”
“Put a tinny in the eskie, all right?”
“One ridiculously cold beer coming up.” Orlando told him, and then went to his trailer. His carryall bag was sitting on the small table, and fresh flowers and a bowl of fruit waited on a counter. The air conditioning ground away busily, seeming far too strong after the balmy heat of the Caribbean. He turned it down and looked in the little fridge for a beer. Disney must not approve of employees drinking at work – there were only juices, soft drinks and water. Rollie probably knew that, and had been teasing him. He liked being teased. Nobody bothered to tease someone they just didn’t care about.
Orlando cautiously took off the top layers of his costume and sat down self-consciously. He would have to find some things to leave around his trailer so it looked like he was actually using the space so kindly provided. He moved the fruit and flowers to different counters, and found a magazine to toss on an empty seat. It didn’t look quite so sterile then.
A rap at the door, then Rollie stuck his head in. “Is this the Alcoholics Anon meeting room?”
“They’re running late,” Orlando said, gesturing toward a seat.
The Australian got himself a bottle of water and sat down across the table. “I could make you a robot that would fetch drinks, you know. It’s a lousy three steps to the cooler…too far when you’re on the verge of passed out. It’d call the supply department and get more when you’re running low.”
“I’ll take you up on that. Don’t want to have to strain myself.”
“Oh, wait, I forgot. You got your own, unique way of grabbing stuff.” Rollie’s eyes sparkled. “You can shame my robot’s servo ass without needing to be plugged in for a recharge.” He toasted Orlando with the water bottle.
“That was what I wanted to talk to you about, actually.” He fiddled with his script pages for a moment, trying to arrange his words. “Do you think that you could, maybe, help me with my ‘talent’? You know…help me sort out just how far it goes, and if it’s safe and everything?”
“You want me to teach you how to act?” Rollie laughed at the look he got. “Oh, right, sorry. You’ve already landed that fish.”
“I thought that maybe you, and your friend Ricky Jay, could help me figure out what I can do, and maybe what I shouldn’t do.” Orlando lifted his eyes to gaze flatly at Rollie. “You didn’t really think I was that stupid, did you?”
Clearly he had…but the smile that followed the expression of shock was genuine enough. “Yeah…I’m afraid we probably underestimated you. I’m sorry, Orli. It’s not that we were trying to trick you because we wanted something…we just didn’t want to scare you.”
“You saw me on the beach.”
“That was the first time. I’m sorry…I fool people for a living. It takes a lot to surprise me. When I realized that maybe you were the genuine article I just had to get another opinion. Ricky debunks fakes in his spare time. He was eager to see what new tricks had hit the trade. Neither of us expected to find out that you’re the real deal. You are the real deal, aren’t you?”
Orlando used his invisible fingers to flick Rollie’s bottle top across the trailer. It hit a mirror with a cheerful plastic ‘ping!’ and bounced to the carpet.
“See!” Rollie exclaimed. “You have no idea how cool that is! Either one of us – both of us – we’d love to help you in any way we can, Orli. You need to keep it secret for obvious reasons. But it couldn’t hurt to understand a bit more what you can do, and maybe what you can’t.”
“Viggo told me to watch out for you. He…he notices things. He said you were watching me too closely. I’d like to think that it’s because you really want to help. I can use help, actually. I need help, sometimes….”
Rollie reached out and clasped his upper arm. “Mates, right? I’ve got your back. You need me, I’m there.”
Orlando felt very grateful, swallowing back the lump in his throat. “I’m a lucky arsehole, I really am. I just keep forgetting it. We’re such a spoiled lot.”
“I’m used to actors,” Rollie said dismissively. “Go ahead, toss a right fit over where your trailer’s parked or the size of your parking place. I’ll go get my didgeridoo and play you a song to break dishes to.”
Laughing loudly, Orlando grinned at his friend.
CHAPTER: Twenty-two: Forging Bonds
AUTHOR: Pecos – PecosPhil@sprintmail.com
WEBSITE: http://www.chimerafic.com
BETA: Namarie120, the brave
RATING: Varies by chapter. This one is PG-13
DISCLAIMER: I don’t make the toys, I’m only
playing with them. No money made, nor
disrespect intended. This is FICTION
WHAT IS IT?: RPS / AU
Sequel to ‘Prophecy: Destiny & Design’
which can be found on my website
WHO’S IN IT?: Sean Bean, Orlando Bloom,
Johnny Depp, Viggo Mortensen and other
actors from ‘The Lord of the Rings’, ‘Pirates
of the Caribbean’, ‘Hidalgo’ and others
FEEDBACK: remember the golden rule, (please!)
NOTE: Please forgive any intentional or
unintentional abuse of facts or history.
Story takes place in early 2002
Beyond Design Limitations
Chapter Twenty-two: Forging Bonds
Elijah
Stretching and yawning, Elijah cracked an eye and tried to find an alarm clock. He went up on one elbow to see over Dominic, and realized unhappily it was still too early by Los Angeles standards. He kissed Dom’s shoulder and struggled out from under the stained duvet to go pee. Elijah almost drank his contacts, which were swimming in a glass on the bathroom counter, but realized his mistake in time and went to the kitchen to find a different glass. Once there, he decided to make coffee.
“Hmmm, coffee,” Elijah moaned aloud, finding the crumpled foil bag. Guatemalan…Dom still had a shred of taste when it came to his beverages of choice. The coffee maker was a generic affair, with the world’s most badly stained carafe, but it should do the trick.
The machine chugged and hissed and started to tick like a bomb, then a heavenly aroma started to rise. Elijah rummaged through the cabinets, hoping he would be able to find enough to eat to delay their need to leave the apartment for at least a couple of hours. They had shared messy, urgent sex the night before, with blurted demands and selfish moments of one-sided gratification. He hoped maybe they could engage in something a trifle more romantic in the light of day…maybe a bit more ‘making love’ and less ‘animals rutting’. The rutting was nice, to be sure, but Elijah wanted to think maybe he had something a bit deeper going on with Dom than just the needs of their respective libidos.
He found a bag of Fig Newtons hard enough to bang out Morse code, and thought they would be salvageable dunked in hot coffee. Good enough. Elijah rifled through a pile of papers on the counter and found a few watercolors that had probably been set aside to dry, and then buried. He liked Dom’s art, although the artist himself was always very self-deprecating. The beach scenes were the best, loads of sunsets and dreamy surfing tableaus, but somehow the colors were frequently off, with angry reds in the distance and slashes of black beneath the waves. There was a carefully rendered sketch of an apparently dead gull resting on a bed of coastal seaweed. The beak gaped open and empty eye sockets had been artfully portrayed.
“Somebody around here needs a vacation,” Elijah said to himself, putting that one back on the bottom of the stack. He poured himself a cup of the now steaming coffee and went looking for milk and sugar. Squinting at the carton, he made sure it was safe, and then found the sugar in a jar labeled ‘cocaine!’ with cheery mice doing back-flips on the hand-drawn label. He took his first happy sip and picked up the next jar on the counter, noticing that the lid had been poked full of holes to make an impromptu shaker. He unscrewed it and tipped it toward his face to see what was inside. The lid lifted with a sticky, tearing sound. A sudden darting movement at the bottom of the jar took a fraction of a second to register, and then Elijah slammed the lid back down on the jar and twisted hard.
Then he screamed.
He screamed loud and long, just like his sister Hannah would at the latest gory slasher flick.
Dom rushed into the kitchen a few moments later, only to find Elijah across the room, perched on the edge of the sink, hyperventilating and shaking his hands wildly, like he’d touched something hot. Unable to compose relevant words into a meaningful sentence, Elijah just raised a trembling finger to point at the jar where it lay on its side, rocking gently.
“Witchy!” Dom blurted, hurrying over to check the jar’s occupant. “Witchy…baby…did he scare you? Oh, my beauty…don’t be frightened….”
“Fuck!” Elijah finally managed to blurt. “Fuck…FUCK!”
“Poor baby…he didn’t mean to yell at you….”
“That’s…that’s a fucking BLACK WIDOW SPIDER, you sick bastard! Deadly, Dom! Deadly poisonous!”
Dom turned an indignant glare on his boyfriend. “You knocked her all over the place! Her web’s a mess!
“You…you…” Elijah stammered, gaining speed as his brain re-engaged at last. “You are SO going to have to see a psychiatrist, Dominic Monaghan!”
Mickey
He was in a foul mood. First the babysitters had just moved outside his door, instead of leaving. After he’d demanded to speak to a superior, they had changed crews and relocated to the waiting room at the end of the hall, but it was obvious that, for whatever reason, Mickey Kostmayer was not to be trusted to be alone in Rome. These dopes were obviously the ‘C’ string of the local players, and he’d have no problem slipping them – once he was mobile – but of course he was nowhere near mobile yet. Shuffling walks with a portable IV unit didn’t make for much of an escape risk.
Then the doctor had ripped him a new asshole for planning to leave the next day. He got ten rounds of ‘what part of bleeding to death do you not grasp?’ from an otherwise very pretty lady trauma specialist, delivered through a nun interpreter with a mustache. The interpreter was not very pretty. He’d finally told the doctor that he’d seen more oozing, bleeding, gushing wounds than he’d care to remember, and he could take care of himself. She told him he was a ‘shithead’ – direct quote from Quasimodo – and if he wanted to die please be sure not to make a mess on the street. The people of Rome cared about their streets. There was a definite flounce when the doctor left, followed by the ‘eye of doom’ and an unmistakable gesture from the interpreter. The Pope would not have been pleased.
Word obviously spread quickly that they were washing their hands of this ungrateful loser, and all of the nurses started giving him the cold shoulder. The ones in habits muttered about ‘praying for his soul’ – he understood that phrase even in Italian. After that it became increasingly hard to ask for pain meds, and harder to admit that he might still need them.
Sitting up stiffly, Mickey went through the paperwork that had been brought to him: the crime scene reports and statements that the ‘Company’ had assembled, augmented by what the local police had gathered. He also got back a translation of the medical records he’d bought off the guards at Nu’s ‘hospital’. By the time Sean and Rho returned that night, Mickey was frothing. He insisted that they take a ‘walk’, and the three men found a small, deserted break room used by the nurses, behind only one locked door. Mickey launched into his lecture immediately.
“The two guys killed at the scene where I got run down were local criminals. No obvious connection to any intelligence services that I may have pissed off in the past, but it’s quite possible they were hired to do it. One of them had worked for the French, and there’s a branch of French Military Intelligence that’s still pretty pissed at me over something that happened in Nicaragua a long time ago. I’m willing to think that they were just opportunists until I hear otherwise.”
Sean was listening to him intently, but Rho was restless, pacing the room. He opened the refrigerator and found the nurse’s lunches, as well as a supply of puddings and ice cream meant for the patients. “Can I have one of these?” Rho asked Sean.
“Go ahead,” Sean told him, distracted. “We skipped dinner, looking for the kid.”
“You might be glad you didn’t find him when I tell you more,” Mickey admitted. “The unlucky hoodlums were killed with Russian hand-to-hand tactics, old KGB stuff, very dirty, very quick. One had a knife that was driven into his brain through his eye, while his own hand was still on the blade. They other had a crushed testicle and was killed with a blow to the face that rammed the bones and cartilage of his nose into his brain.”
Rho stopped fiddling with the pudding, sinking into a chair. “Who could do that sort of thing?”
“Your new brother, Pepper,” Mickey said, looking at him meaningfully. “There’d been at least five deaths at his old ‘mental home’ attributable to similar techniques. Took a while to find the connection, but apparently there was an old-guard KGB field agent who’d been ‘retired’ to the hospital after losing his objectivity in Chetchnia. The guy got to know your boy one way or another. Maybe he used him for something, maybe they were actually friends, but I think he taught your kid a few ways to defend himself. These aren’t the kind of things that just anybody picks up in a hospital, even one that’s more realistically called a jail. I suspect that Nu was able to kill pretty much anybody he had to, but if he had your moral constitution he probably didn’t want to do it.”
By ‘your’ Mickey had obviously meant the clones. Rho stared at him over a spoonful of chocolate pudding. “I couldn’t kill anybody.”
“Neither could Gamma,” Sean said softly. “But at the very end…at the end…he did.”
Mickey knew he should tell them about the avenging clone who was apparently wiping out the researchers and Brotherhood of Hiram people, but he was in too much discomfort from his recent wounds, and it was difficult to sit in the hard chair. “My point here is that when I hit the pavement, Nu got up and protected me. He’s not just a lost puppy. He’s a junkyard puppy with a lethal bite. You two need to realize that if you’re going to keep trying to find him.”
“We’re going to find him,” Rho said with utter certainty. “We’ll find him here in Rome, and we’ll take him somewhere safe.”
Sean’s eyes darted from one of them to the other. He didn’t seem to have anything to say.
Orlando
“You can put it by the window,” he told the room service waiter, wrinkling his nose at the unexpected odors of hot food. The waiter rolled the ornate table into place and quickly set everything up, opening the curtains, pulling a chair over and placing it for maximum comfort and view, arranging cutlery. “I didn’t order any breakfast,” Orlando said, confused.
“The overnight order card was left on your door, sir. We pick those up at 3am. Maybe you were tired, and forgot?”
Maybe the driver from Disney had done it. Or Aileen…or somebody else who was supposed to be minding him? Orlando had no idea. He remembered tardily that the waiter should be tipped. The guy was obviously lingering just a tiny bit, fiddling with the single red sweetheart rose in a tiny vase. Orlando scrambled for his cash, and came up with colorful East Caribbean bills. “Oh, uh, this is all I have.”
“Don’t worry about it, sir. It’s our pleasure to serve you here at the Chateau Marmont.” The waiter bowed and started to leave.
“I’ll catch you up later!” Orlando promised the closing door. He turned to look at the garish array of silver warmers, carafes of colorful juices, and miniature condiments. It was all very pretty. His stomach grumbled enthusiastically, and he lifted a domed lid. Sliced bananas in cream, just the way he loved them. The next one held an egg white omelet with fresh tomatoes, and next to that was a bowl of grapefruit wedges with a sprinkling of brown sugar. He poured himself a steaming cup of Earl Grey and sat down. Once he started to eat it was impossible to stop.
The breakfast request card was underneath a plate, along with a bill that made him choke on the freshly-squeezed orange juice. Fortunately, the charges had been credited to the room, with a notation that Disney Corp. was covering all expenses. He picked up the card that had been hung on his door some time last night. Every single one of Orlando’s favorite breakfast foods had been checked, with one he really disliked crossed out. The notation to put brown sugar on the grapefruit slices was written on the back, as were instructions about what kind of cream to pour on the bananas and a request that the tea be loose leaf.
A creeping sensation shot up Orlando’s neck. He hadn’t filled out this card, but there it was, in his handwriting, with everything he would want to eat, prepared exactly the way he would have wanted it prepared.
It was beyond creepy. It was scary.
Viggo
He paced, literally wringing his hands, back and forth across the gaudy carpet of the frequent flier’s lounge. Stranded businessmen sprinkled the room, talking on phones and tapping madly on their laptop computers. The wind shook the big glass windows that would normally frame a view of planes lifting off, heading to all compass points. Angry clouds crowded the darkened sky, and rain pelted the runways. O’Hare Airport was suffering a computer crash in the control tower, and some of the worst weather Chicago had seen in years. All flights were grounded.
Viggo’s heart felt like a stone in his chest. He pulled out his own cell phone once again and hit redial, but Orlando still didn’t answer. The familiar voice asked him to leave a message, and Viggo snapped his cell shut. There was no reason to panic. There was no proof that Orlando was in danger. There was no justification for scaring the kid…none at all.
Was there?
Rho
He sat on the sun-warm and ancient stone of the Spanish Steps, near the Keats museum, squinting into shadows and trying to figure out where his ‘brother’ could be in this huge, chaotic city. Young men were soliciting gullible female tourists with roses and lyrical nonsense, and people clustered around the old boat fountain like survivors of a crash in the desert. Nothing Rho had ever experienced had prepared him for a place like this. Even London had seemed somehow smaller, less frightening, his exposure coming in bits and pieces, with Sean there to reassure him every step of the way. But this place…this was madness! His heart clenched in his chest, and he felt every bit as alone and frightened as Nu must be feeling.
That was the moment when he got a strange sensation of seeing double. It was like there was another place laid on top of the Piazza di Spagna – another side to reality. He could see crowds and statues and light and dark places which weren’t actually in front of him. He could see a long, angular, stony finger thrusting accusatorially at the sky. It was a pointed tower like they’d seen outside Saint Paul’s…in the place where Sean had been so quiet.
“The pointy thing,” Rho mumbled, trying to focus exclusively on that overlay of images, rather than on the real things around him.
“Aye, what?” Sean mumbled, not bothering to look down. He was hiding beneath a baseball cap, and he spoke quietly outside because people could recognize him by his voice. They had no time to bother with other people.
“The thing outside the church. The pointy…you said it was from Egypt. You said they’d stolen it, and stuck their cross on the top.”
“Obelisk, Colt. Maybe ‘stolen’ was a bit harsh.” Sean sounded interested now. “You mean Saint Peter’s Square?” He sounded amused that Rho would be unfamiliar with the landmark they’d visited that morning.
“Obelisk…but different. Somewhere different…” Rho squinted harder, but he lost the second reality. He clamped his eyes shut, trying to retain any details he could. “Quick, Sean, find me pictures of places in Rome! Places with a…an…obelisk!”
He could hear Sean start, stepping away a few feet, then hurrying in a different direction. Then he was talking to someone, using his few words of Italian. He was trying to borrow something, apologizing, then Sean rushed back to him and pushed something hard and smooth into Rho’s hands. “I’ve got a guidebook! Can you find it?”
“Look for obelisks,” Rho begged, still unwilling to open his eyes. He didn’t want to see the chaotic and colorful scene around them; he needed to stay with his brother, with Nu, wherever that was.
Sean flipped through the pages quickly. “Here’s the one at the Vatican, the one we saw this morning.
“No, it’s different. There’s…there’s statues at the bottom.”
“Lions? Or people statues?”
“People…weird people. Water.”
The tourists who’d ‘loaned’ Sean their guidebook had arrived, and were starting to interrupt. Rho could hear the pages flipping quickly. “Sorry, just a moment, really…just need to…Rho, look here.”
Rho peeked down at the picture held over his lap. The face of a stern building was shadowed by a smooth, pointy spire, rising from the middle of a very elaborate fountain.
“That’s it!” he shouted, grabbing the book. “He’s there! He’s there right now!”
Orlando
Aileen had alternately loved and grilled him all the way to the Disney Studios. They had to attend a meeting, then Orlando would be going out to the just-completed sets. There was also going to be a new place for him to stay after that, some sort of a condo arrangement. It was supposed to be fully furnished, and even stocked with food and his belongings by the time he got there. He’d have a rental car at his disposal as well, and there would likely be time to visit friends around LA. He wondered who might want to see him.
His agent was upbeat and cheerful about everything, especially the latest offers. She’d been quite surprised to have received an inquiry from Wolfgang Peterson about the new ‘Troy’ movie. Aileen had thought it would be another small role, but when the script arrived it was for one of the leads, Paris. She wanted to ask for at least ten million in US dollars. Orlando didn’t care, although he was very pleased to hear that Eric Bana and Sean Bean were likely to be in the movie with him. The mention of Brad Pitt made him nervous…but it was all just a maybe anyhow.
He was feeling happier than he had since Viggo had left, maybe because he’d had a good meal and it hadn’t made him sick. He was as close to rested as he got anymore, and all the people at Disney were extremely nice. Geoffrey had reportedly arrived that morning grumpy and had left already, planning to meet them on set. Johnny was there, bright-eyed and ready to go, feeling the studio’s full support for the first time since they’d locked horns over the whole ‘gay rock star pirate’ issue. The meeting went well, and Aileen eventually departed with a smile on her face.
Maybe he wasn’t going to be as lonely as he had been on the island. He told one of the Disney girls that he’d never been to the theme park, and she said they could set him up with passes any time he wanted. Orlando wondered if the Hobbits would like to go. Sean’s wife and kids too. He couldn’t imagine Viggo enjoying coaster rides and mouse-shaped ice creams, but maybe he could be talked into it when he got back from Morocco. Viggo was working for Disney too…he could probably get his own free passes.
Orlando’s face was scanned by a weird computer, sorta like some of the things they’d done at WETA, which was apparently going to be for making toys. Then a limousine drove him and Johnny across town to the new sound stages. Johnny asked them to stop at some restaurant, and introduced Orlando to a ‘tofu burger’. He felt so full after that he fell asleep in the car while it waded thorough traffic. Johnny let Orlando lay his head in his lap, and he dreamed that they were on a boat again.
Sean
The taxi skidded to a stop near a crowd of tourists heading through a narrow passageway to the Bernini fountain. Rho burst out the door and took off. Sean paused only long enough to shove the promised bills into the driver’s hand, and then he was off after the young man. Rho ran hard across the uneven pavement, eyes on the obelisk, hands outstretched like he was trying to feel his brother’s presence. Sean stumbled to a stop some way behind him, expectantly scanning the faces of everyone around them.
“Nicky!” Rho shouted, slowing to a standstill, turning in a circle. “Nicky!”
Sean saw the southern fountain, the Moro, beyond a milling group, and he took a couple of steps in that direction. There were only a few men standing alone, and none of them had the right height and build. Children were racing through the piazza, chasing pigeons and laughing. Booths and tables had been set up anywhere there was shade, selling a variety of trinkets and goods. Voices rose, speaking a multitude of languages.
“Nicky!” Rho yelled again, loud enough to be heard over the rushing water of the Four Rivers Fountain and the mass of people. “Nick…Nu, it’s Rho!” He lifted his face to the cloudy sky and spun in a slow circle, showing himself to everyone who stared at the crazy yelling man. Someone shot an insult at him in Italian. Sean wanted to warn Rho, but he didn’t know why.
A solitary figure detached itself from the shadows of the Church of Sant’Agnese, coming into the light with small, cautious steps. Rho froze, then turned to him, mouth open, saying nothing. Sean dared to move toward them, entranced, utterly ignoring everyone and everything else in the bustling square. Rho raised his hands, and Nu came forward faster. Then they were embracing, and it felt like the entire world paused for just a moment. Nu cupped Rho’s face in his dirty hands, and Rho mirrored the gesture with Nu. Their eyes darted everywhere, constantly returning to meet twin orbs. “Nicky,” Rho whispered in affirmation.
By then Sean had come as close as he could, and he stared at the twins in amazement. Nu’s drastically short hair, the bandaged hand, and the bare feet made him look like a crazy man. Rho’s gorgeous face glowed with an emotion close to rapture.
“Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta,” Rho whispered. “Epsilon, Zeta, Eta.…”
“Theta,” Sean said softly, needing to touch this moment himself, needing to assure that it was real. He opened his mouth to continue the list, but Nu’s eyes turned and met his ---
--- and Sean Bean’s world spun away. His heart skipped a beat, then the next. He fell down, into those eyes, and he was lost in another world…images swirled and darted, bright flashes, feelings so quick and intense they felt like physical blows:
Loneliness, fear, anger, hopeless despair.
Being hit, and dragged, and held down, helpless.
Being ignored so consistently he thought maybe he was disappearing. He was becoming invisible.
His face submerged in water, on the verge of drowning, hands clawing at the slick sink to the sound of manic laughter.
Days and weeks of drugged haze.
Trying to make crude overtures of friendship, and having them thrown back in his face.
Angry looks, lustful looks, cruel words.
The first time he was raped, the shame and pain and terror so raw that Sean’s own knees buckled.
The first time that someone reached out and took his hand in friendship.
The first time that he hit back; the feeling of flesh giving way beneath his fist.
The feeling of triumph when he finally got revenge…and the hopelessness of realizing how pointless and hollow his victory really was.
The first time he took someone else’s life, the convulsing body falling away so heavily, lifeless and empty…
Sean Bean’s own body lay limp on the sun-warmed stones of Rome, staring up at an empty sky, his mind reeling with too many things to contain. He didn’t know who he was or where he was, and had forgotten to breathe. Then someone took his hand, and the world went black and slid away from view.
Orlando
He was trying to find his trailer in the row of identical ones crammed nose to tail in the alley between monstrous sound stages. Geoffrey, Keira, Johnny, Gore…the signs were printed with cheery script on clean white cards. The row ended. He stood there with his script pages in his hand, feeling stupid.
“’Round the corner, mate,” said a cheery Australian voice.
Orlando looked where he was pointing and saw the back of yet another squat luxury hut. “I knew that,” he said in a teasing tone.
“I knew you knew,” Rollie countered breezily, turning to go about his business.
“Rollie,” Orland called after him. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Uh, sure, mate. Gotta run this box of squibs over to the crew, can it wait for five minutes?”
“I’ll be in my trailer,” he said with a grin. “Over there. See?”
“Put a tinny in the eskie, all right?”
“One ridiculously cold beer coming up.” Orlando told him, and then went to his trailer. His carryall bag was sitting on the small table, and fresh flowers and a bowl of fruit waited on a counter. The air conditioning ground away busily, seeming far too strong after the balmy heat of the Caribbean. He turned it down and looked in the little fridge for a beer. Disney must not approve of employees drinking at work – there were only juices, soft drinks and water. Rollie probably knew that, and had been teasing him. He liked being teased. Nobody bothered to tease someone they just didn’t care about.
Orlando cautiously took off the top layers of his costume and sat down self-consciously. He would have to find some things to leave around his trailer so it looked like he was actually using the space so kindly provided. He moved the fruit and flowers to different counters, and found a magazine to toss on an empty seat. It didn’t look quite so sterile then.
A rap at the door, then Rollie stuck his head in. “Is this the Alcoholics Anon meeting room?”
“They’re running late,” Orlando said, gesturing toward a seat.
The Australian got himself a bottle of water and sat down across the table. “I could make you a robot that would fetch drinks, you know. It’s a lousy three steps to the cooler…too far when you’re on the verge of passed out. It’d call the supply department and get more when you’re running low.”
“I’ll take you up on that. Don’t want to have to strain myself.”
“Oh, wait, I forgot. You got your own, unique way of grabbing stuff.” Rollie’s eyes sparkled. “You can shame my robot’s servo ass without needing to be plugged in for a recharge.” He toasted Orlando with the water bottle.
“That was what I wanted to talk to you about, actually.” He fiddled with his script pages for a moment, trying to arrange his words. “Do you think that you could, maybe, help me with my ‘talent’? You know…help me sort out just how far it goes, and if it’s safe and everything?”
“You want me to teach you how to act?” Rollie laughed at the look he got. “Oh, right, sorry. You’ve already landed that fish.”
“I thought that maybe you, and your friend Ricky Jay, could help me figure out what I can do, and maybe what I shouldn’t do.” Orlando lifted his eyes to gaze flatly at Rollie. “You didn’t really think I was that stupid, did you?”
Clearly he had…but the smile that followed the expression of shock was genuine enough. “Yeah…I’m afraid we probably underestimated you. I’m sorry, Orli. It’s not that we were trying to trick you because we wanted something…we just didn’t want to scare you.”
“You saw me on the beach.”
“That was the first time. I’m sorry…I fool people for a living. It takes a lot to surprise me. When I realized that maybe you were the genuine article I just had to get another opinion. Ricky debunks fakes in his spare time. He was eager to see what new tricks had hit the trade. Neither of us expected to find out that you’re the real deal. You are the real deal, aren’t you?”
Orlando used his invisible fingers to flick Rollie’s bottle top across the trailer. It hit a mirror with a cheerful plastic ‘ping!’ and bounced to the carpet.
“See!” Rollie exclaimed. “You have no idea how cool that is! Either one of us – both of us – we’d love to help you in any way we can, Orli. You need to keep it secret for obvious reasons. But it couldn’t hurt to understand a bit more what you can do, and maybe what you can’t.”
“Viggo told me to watch out for you. He…he notices things. He said you were watching me too closely. I’d like to think that it’s because you really want to help. I can use help, actually. I need help, sometimes….”
Rollie reached out and clasped his upper arm. “Mates, right? I’ve got your back. You need me, I’m there.”
Orlando felt very grateful, swallowing back the lump in his throat. “I’m a lucky arsehole, I really am. I just keep forgetting it. We’re such a spoiled lot.”
“I’m used to actors,” Rollie said dismissively. “Go ahead, toss a right fit over where your trailer’s parked or the size of your parking place. I’ll go get my didgeridoo and play you a song to break dishes to.”
Laughing loudly, Orlando grinned at his friend.
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(Why doesn't anyone trust Rollie? Orlando does. He wouldn't make a mistake, would he?)
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I worry about Sean too, this is a worrisome chapter :-)
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I'm more of the opinion that Omega wrote the breakfast order, it would have been relatively simple for him to get into the hotel given his strong resemblence to Lambda. I know that so far he only seems to have targeted those he thinks have harmed the clones but I wonder what he intends for his 'brothers'.I suspect that Omega would approve of Nu's acquired talents. I also have to wonder if Omega is only working for himself...
Poor Mickey is fated to be surrounded by nuns - and we know how much he loves that.