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fellowshippers2004-03-11 06:32 pm
bybartle-by.livejournal.com) wrote in fellowshippers2004-03-11 06:32 pm
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Title: Mon Légionnaire
Author: Bartleby
Fandom: LOTRips
Pairing: Orlando Bloom/Elijah Wood
Rating: PG
Summary:
Feedback: Please.
Disclaimer: This is not true and never happened. I don't own these guys.
Warnings: AU
Notes: The Foreign Legion has never been stationed in the Congo. (At least not that I can find...) And they are actually currently in Haiti.
Dedication: Written for the LOTR love letter challenge for Ary. And even though I know it is massively late, I figured that she shouldn't have to suffer for my taking on too much at once and so, here it is anyway.
Mon Légionnaire
Orlando met Elijah in the Kensington Gardens. A charming, young American sitting in the shade of a small elm tree, sketching a bed of tiger lilies and great, pink irises. They'd made polite conversation at first, about the weather and this and that and the flowers and Orlando asked Elijah if he'd join him for tea. Elijah happily agreed, and for days following the two met in the gardens and adjourned for tea, chattering for hours.
Elijah sketched a picture of him under the elm tree, lounging with his hair in his eyes and reading a book and Orlando was so pleased that he couldn't stop singing his praises. Elijah might have blushed a bit, but he covered it with his charcoal stained fingers, leaving great black smudges arcing over his cheekbones and Orlando had laughed at him, earning himself a small, well formed thumb print on the bridge of his nose.
That evening, as they parted ways, Orlando pressed a note into Elijah's fingers. He had been unsure of what exactly he would say and how. Orlando finally settled on speaking plainly and had written:
Lij,
Give me a chance. At least one. If you are up to it, go to St. John's tomorrow at 8:00 pm. I you aren't there, then I know your decision.
Orli
"Read it when you're alone, I won't be able to meet you tomorrow afternoon." He said and left Elijah at a tiny corner table in their cafe.
Saint John's was a small chapel with a courtyard filled with flowers and possibly one of Elijah's favorite places in the whole of England. Or so he said when he brought Orlando there to sketch the flowers and the architecture and even a small drawing of the young priest who shepherded the congregation.
Orlando waited in the dark courtyard for nearly an hour before the priest discovered him there.
"Good evening, my son." He said softly, even though he and Orlando were nearly the same age. "Are you waiting for him? That other young man who was here with you before?" Orlando nodded yes and the priest sat next to him on the stone bench and pressed a folded piece of paper in to Orlando's palm. "He was here earlier in the day and he left this for you." He gently squeezed Orlando's shoulder and moved back towards his church.
The note sat in Orlando's palm like a threat a half dozen scenarios running through his mind before finally, he rose to read the note in the dim light of the church's rectory.
Orli,
I've been called home. Maybe I'll be back someday. And maybe I'll see you then.
I'm sorry.
Elijah
It wasn't outright rejection. Orlando could have handled that. He could have handled anything but this, the possibility foiled by something so outside of anyone's control. At the time, enlisting the the Foreign Legion had seemed like such a good idea, he barely gave it a second thought.
Orlando always believed there was a certain romance that went along with being a member of the Foreign Legion. High adventure; exotic locales and him at the center of it all, the sung hero of any number of nations and people. What he hadn't expected was quite so much war and quite so little of anything else, except perhaps, exotic destinations. It seems that the Legion is the fighting force that France sends anywhere she doesn't want to send her army. The expendable ones, which, Orlando reckons, is exactly the point. Most men join the Legion to die.
To die or to forget.
He finds himself a rare Englishman in a sea of French and German soldiers who speak barely enough English to snap a curt word in his direction now and again. He finds himself lumped in with a Scot and another young Englishman, banded together out of necessity, though Orlando thinks they probably wouldn't have got on well in another place and time.
They eat together, making light, awkward chatter sharing stories of home and Orlando is surprised to discover how homesick he is. The Congo is such a strange place, sweltering and sultry and muddy everywhere. Too hot for clothes, but the biting flies make it impossible to leave any flesh uncovered for long. They swat and hope against malaria and Dominic, the Englishman, speaks nostalgically of his home in Manchester and the girl he left behind there. He was supposed to marry her, she never showed; he never knew where she went. Turned him off of women forever so, what better place for him than here?
"Why are you here, Bills?" Dominic takes a sip of gritty river water out of his canteen and makes a horrible face.
Billy shrugs. "Nothing for me in Edinburgh." He says. "No reason to stay, nowhere else to go." He speaks quietly and without his usual exuberance and then looks expectantly at Orlando.
Orlando doesn't speak immediately, he stares into his bowl. Thin broth and limp vegetables and stringy meat. He sighs and speaks: "A girl." He says, finally. "A girl who went home and left me behind." Billy and Dominic nod sagely, like they knew it all along and in some weird way, Orlando thinks they probably did.
~Fin
Author: Bartleby
Fandom: LOTRips
Pairing: Orlando Bloom/Elijah Wood
Rating: PG
Summary:
Feedback: Please.
Disclaimer: This is not true and never happened. I don't own these guys.
Warnings: AU
Notes: The Foreign Legion has never been stationed in the Congo. (At least not that I can find...) And they are actually currently in Haiti.
Dedication: Written for the LOTR love letter challenge for Ary. And even though I know it is massively late, I figured that she shouldn't have to suffer for my taking on too much at once and so, here it is anyway.
Mon Légionnaire
Orlando met Elijah in the Kensington Gardens. A charming, young American sitting in the shade of a small elm tree, sketching a bed of tiger lilies and great, pink irises. They'd made polite conversation at first, about the weather and this and that and the flowers and Orlando asked Elijah if he'd join him for tea. Elijah happily agreed, and for days following the two met in the gardens and adjourned for tea, chattering for hours.
Elijah sketched a picture of him under the elm tree, lounging with his hair in his eyes and reading a book and Orlando was so pleased that he couldn't stop singing his praises. Elijah might have blushed a bit, but he covered it with his charcoal stained fingers, leaving great black smudges arcing over his cheekbones and Orlando had laughed at him, earning himself a small, well formed thumb print on the bridge of his nose.
That evening, as they parted ways, Orlando pressed a note into Elijah's fingers. He had been unsure of what exactly he would say and how. Orlando finally settled on speaking plainly and had written:
Lij,
Give me a chance. At least one. If you are up to it, go to St. John's tomorrow at 8:00 pm. I you aren't there, then I know your decision.
Orli
"Read it when you're alone, I won't be able to meet you tomorrow afternoon." He said and left Elijah at a tiny corner table in their cafe.
Saint John's was a small chapel with a courtyard filled with flowers and possibly one of Elijah's favorite places in the whole of England. Or so he said when he brought Orlando there to sketch the flowers and the architecture and even a small drawing of the young priest who shepherded the congregation.
Orlando waited in the dark courtyard for nearly an hour before the priest discovered him there.
"Good evening, my son." He said softly, even though he and Orlando were nearly the same age. "Are you waiting for him? That other young man who was here with you before?" Orlando nodded yes and the priest sat next to him on the stone bench and pressed a folded piece of paper in to Orlando's palm. "He was here earlier in the day and he left this for you." He gently squeezed Orlando's shoulder and moved back towards his church.
The note sat in Orlando's palm like a threat a half dozen scenarios running through his mind before finally, he rose to read the note in the dim light of the church's rectory.
Orli,
I've been called home. Maybe I'll be back someday. And maybe I'll see you then.
I'm sorry.
Elijah
It wasn't outright rejection. Orlando could have handled that. He could have handled anything but this, the possibility foiled by something so outside of anyone's control. At the time, enlisting the the Foreign Legion had seemed like such a good idea, he barely gave it a second thought.
Orlando always believed there was a certain romance that went along with being a member of the Foreign Legion. High adventure; exotic locales and him at the center of it all, the sung hero of any number of nations and people. What he hadn't expected was quite so much war and quite so little of anything else, except perhaps, exotic destinations. It seems that the Legion is the fighting force that France sends anywhere she doesn't want to send her army. The expendable ones, which, Orlando reckons, is exactly the point. Most men join the Legion to die.
To die or to forget.
He finds himself a rare Englishman in a sea of French and German soldiers who speak barely enough English to snap a curt word in his direction now and again. He finds himself lumped in with a Scot and another young Englishman, banded together out of necessity, though Orlando thinks they probably wouldn't have got on well in another place and time.
They eat together, making light, awkward chatter sharing stories of home and Orlando is surprised to discover how homesick he is. The Congo is such a strange place, sweltering and sultry and muddy everywhere. Too hot for clothes, but the biting flies make it impossible to leave any flesh uncovered for long. They swat and hope against malaria and Dominic, the Englishman, speaks nostalgically of his home in Manchester and the girl he left behind there. He was supposed to marry her, she never showed; he never knew where she went. Turned him off of women forever so, what better place for him than here?
"Why are you here, Bills?" Dominic takes a sip of gritty river water out of his canteen and makes a horrible face.
Billy shrugs. "Nothing for me in Edinburgh." He says. "No reason to stay, nowhere else to go." He speaks quietly and without his usual exuberance and then looks expectantly at Orlando.
Orlando doesn't speak immediately, he stares into his bowl. Thin broth and limp vegetables and stringy meat. He sighs and speaks: "A girl." He says, finally. "A girl who went home and left me behind." Billy and Dominic nod sagely, like they knew it all along and in some weird way, Orlando thinks they probably did.
~Fin
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