[rps] road trip 1/2
co-written with anatsuno and sparcck



Tuesday. Afternoon.

"MATE!"

Gleeful yell included, Orlando slaps Josh across the shoulders as hard as he possibly can. "Fucking brilliant!" he says, ducking the handswipe headed his way before sitting down on the barstool.

"Mate," he says again before staring and grinning stupidly at Josh, cocking his head. "Too fucking long between times, innit?"

Josh, grinning just as daft, reaches over and gives Orlando a horsebite pinch on his thigh. "That's for spilling my beer, you prick." He slaps on Orlando's jeans where he pinched. "How are you, movie star?"

Orlando sticks his hand out to the bartender and points to the Stella Artois sign on the wall. "Not too bad. Somedays I forget my name though. And what century I'm supposed to be playing in." The bartender slides Orlando's bottle towards him, and he tips it back. "Ahh. Fucking fantastic. Needed that."

"You're getting the California accent, you know," Josh says with twinkling eyes, drawling out the nasal 'a' sound.

"Bloody am not-" Orlando clips off the vowels and thinks Ha. He pokes Josh in the arm. "Worst. Fucking. Yorkshire. Accent. Ever. I saw that film, Hartnett."

"What would you know about it, Southie," Josh drawls, and he's so stupidly happy to fall back into this with Orlando, who is so his opposite that they're the same again. Orlando's like that, though, he's always thought, so movie star he's not, so horrendously pretty he's a goofball.

Not to mention being a total noob, and Josh can't believe he even thought that stupid word.

"Hush, not so loud," Orlando laughs. "You'll never get hired again." He takes another pull, and Josh smirks at the clatter of bangles around Orlando's right wrist.

He leans over before he can think about it and rubs the ends of Orlando's hair between his fingers. "Thought you couldn't wait to cut this?"

"Nah. Got used to it. Plus," Orlando looks seriously at Josh, glancing up from his fingers wrapped around the brown curl to Josh's face, "all the girls like to play with it."

"Fucker," says Josh pleasantly, smacking Orlando on the side of the head, "I was going to offer to cut it for you. Like bonding, you know. Could buzz cut it again."

"Not bloody likely, mate." Orlando waggles his now-empty bottle at the bartender. "Got an image to preserve now, y'know. Doesn't need your butchery with clippers."

There is a tiny pause, a beat in the air, and they both speak at once.

"Is that your car right outside, then?"

"Do you know if Elijah's in town?"

Orlando smiles, his giddy, practical-joke smile and Josh crosses his arms and rounds his shoulders, leaning back on the barstool, away from him. "What?"

"Nothing, man, nothing. So, me first? That your car?"

"Yeah," Josh says slowly.

"Thought you'd have some flashier thing." Orlando is still smiling, and Josh feels the back of his neck prickle, warm Orlando-feeling curl through his belly.

"What?" he laughs.

"Elijah is in town, you know."

"Oh, yeah?"

The smile turns into something a little more calculating. "Oh, yeah."

"How do you know?" Josh counters, shifting on the stool, emphasis on the you.

"Saw him yesterday," Orlando says. "Told him I was gonna see you." Orlando spins around on the seat, feeling like a little kid with a secret, but fuck, man, Josh.

Josh raises his eyebrows, says nothing, slightly interested but not fooling Orlando, not a bit.

"Yup." Has to be done, Orlando thinks. "Wanna take a trip to the desert?"

Lots of things flash through Josh's head, but one gets stuck, and it's Orlando, fake blood smeared on his upper lip after the last take of the day, sitting crosslegged in the Moroccan dust, squinting up at Josh and the uncontrollable urge to lean down and wipe it off with his thumb.

Orlando's warm, wet tongue swiping across the pad and catching his fingernail.

Orlando and the desert.

And--oh, oh, jeez--Elijah. Josh's heart thuds, hard. He can't stop the lazy smile he knows is curling the edges of his mouth.

"I've got a better idea," he says and Orlando is practically jittering with excited energy.

"Vegas?" Orlando blurts, grinning wide, baring all his perfect, white teeth.

Josh closes one eye, points his index finger at him and Orlando laughs. "Vegas, baby."

Vegas, baby. It doesn't even seem cheesy coming from Josh, shit like that never does, corn-fed smile and all. It just makes Orlando happy - no filming for a few days, his mates, the desert, and Josh's car, which Orlando has a big fucking hard-on for.

Orlando stretches his arms up above his head, cracks a few knuckles and twists his back, can't stop kicking his feet a bit. "We going now, then?"

Josh, who is putting some notes on the bar, closes his eyes and twists his head away, smiling, and Orlando knows he'll say yes. He's seen that smile before.

Orlando is first to the door and he turns, his hand splayed flat against the wood, sliding a pair of shiny, highway patrolman sunglasses onto his face. "Lead on," he says, and holds the door open for Josh.

Josh can't stop smiling, turns and walks backwards outside, watching the crinkles at the corners of Orlando's mouth as he squints behind his sunglasses. He doesn't say anything, even though he's dying to, and the crinkles turn suspicious.

"Making fun of me, aren't you?"

"I didn't say a word."

"Didn't have to, did you, wanker."

Orlando quickly loses interest when Josh opens the car door for him and he slides in, thin wallet chain slithering over the leather seat. He looks in heaven, rings clicking against the dashboard as he smoothes his hands over it.

"Perfect," he breathes and Josh thinks, suddenly, that they have to get in the car and get Elijah and just drive because being with Orlando like this is like being on the edge of a cliff--

"Mobile," Orlando says, obviously for the second time.

Josh blinks, comes back, and, "Yeah, sure."

"Cheers, I lost m-- oh, man, I want one of these," Orlando says, grabbing Josh's picture phone and examining it.

"'S cool. Handy." Josh squeezes one eye shut when he turns to Orlando. "There's pictures of Harrison on there." They both smirk, a wordless conversation that says plainly Don't we just have fucking great lives?

Josh starts the car, pulls it into reverse and accelerates fast, spins out of the parking space. Orlando has to balance with one hand on the dash while he clicks in his seatbelt, muttering "Maniac," under his breath.

"You love it," Josh snorts, pulling his arm back from behind Orlando's headrest, jabbing the phone. "Dial, boyo."

Orlando taps in Elijah's number and hits send. The phone only has time to ring once before he presses the cancel button, struck with remnants of the--frankly--interesting conversation he'd had with Elijah the night before.

Josh is checking the side mirror at the intersection. "Well?"

Orlando taps the phone to his nose, a tremor of adrenaline flitting across his shoulders. "I have an idea.

The car jerks as Josh hits the gas once, too hard, and Orlando puts his head back and laughs; the sunlight flashes off of his sunglasses, making Josh blink hard and bring his attention back to the road.

Josh sighs even as he feels a cool sweat bead on his upper lip, his expression a practiced long-suffering at the hands of Orlando and however his tangled brain sometimes works.

He licks his lip and tastes salt and some kind of Orlando-anticipation that he remembers from the heat of the desert. "I'm sure I'll regret asking this at some point in the very near future, but what exactly are you planning?"

"Haha, trust me, you won't regret this," Orlando says, fishing around in the glove compartment for a map-book. Josh has one, of course; actually he has four, along with a first-aid kit, notepad, pens, a baseball cap, an AAA membership card and some mints. Orlando resists the temptation to snigger, and at any rate, he knows that Josh was a boy scout.

He flips through the map pages until he finds the area he's looking for, and circles half the page with the pen, smiling broadly at Josh, who is obviously trying hard not to snatch the pen from Orlando's hand.

"Where are we going, Bloom?" Josh taps his fingers mock-irritatedly on the steering wheel. "I need directions, here."

Orlando finishes scribbling on the notepad, his list of tasks completed. "Right. Sorry, mate. Okay. Yours. Then mine. Pick up stuff. Make a few calls." He looks up at Josh, who has his sideways eyebrow-raised glance firmly in place.

"Just trust me. We'll have fun. Elijah likes suprises. We're going to give him a surprise." Orlando thinks this just be the best idea he's had. He leans back, arms behind the headrest. Thinks about Elijah, and his dodging contrariness, his ability to slither right under Orlando's skin. Thinks about Josh, who he just can't believe isn't his brother, fucks sake, who literally makes him bounce. Who bounces off him.

Bloody brilliant idea.

Josh swings the car onto the freeway.

::

1. Jabara: (Arabic): reunion.