EMAIL: dee@viscerate.com
SUMMARY: How will Viggo and Orlando react to being spied upon?
NOTES: This isn't as smutty as I'm sure some have hoped it might get. Sorry. A) I don't write robotic mechanics unless it's necessary to the story, and it rarely is. B) The tone all the way through has been (I hope) one of /sensuality/ rather than /sexuality/. My aim is to tantalise, not titillate.
DEDICATION: This is all the fault of Miss Megolas.

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They started in their usual way, lining up the vodka shots, giggling, at the bar.

Round one: "To the ladies of the Lord of the Rings!" Glasses raised, and then the liquor knocked back with a toss of their heads, the solid thunk of the glasses slammed back down on the bar. "For putting up with the shit of the menfolk," Cate added, and Miranda laughed, gesturing to the bartender to refill their glasses.

Round two: "Up yours, Mr Tolkien!" And a second chorus of glasses hitting the bar. More laughter this time, and Liv relaxed, feeling the pleasant trail of the alcohol from the back of her throat, now spreading out from her stomach in a delightful tingle.

Yes, this had been a good idea.

A large group of them had come tonight, including both Orlando and Viggo, but the club was huge, and full of a mass of humanity, and it was easy to lose those she didn't want to see, to find others with whom to enjoy herself. She meandered between dancefloor and bar, drinks and random conversation, a pleasant glow settling over her.

She was on the dancefloor, lost in the sea of bodies moving to the same rhythm, when she became aware of a jarring lack of movement just beside her. She turned to face it - /him/ - swinging her hair out of her face. And as her eyes met clear brown, she felt a twinge of nerves, then blistering anger. "What?" she snapped at Orlando.

His smile wasn't shaken. He stepped closer, and she refused to step back. "Just returning a favour," he commented blandly, and moved past her, sliding close against her side, a whisper of fabric, and he leaned close to her ear to murmur: "Like what you see?"

Then he was gone, weaving through the tangle of dancers, and Liv was frozen. Oh God. He'd noticed. They'd noticed?

She had to get out of here.

She elbowed her way off the dance floor, slipped between the tables towards the door. She'd almost made it when she was suddenly brought to a halt by a hand on her arm.

"Viggo!"

"Is something wrong?" he asked, and she wondered how the hell his voice could be that low and yet still effortlessly reach her ears, even with the noise of the club all around them.

"I'm tired," she told him, truthfully. "I'm heading home."

"You shouldn't go alone; it's not safe." That same low, slightly gravelled voice.

"I'll take a cab."

"I'll share it with you."

He turned back to his table to swallow the last mouthful of his drink and exchange nods and polite farewells with the rest of the table. She looked away, wanted to flee, couldn't with Viggo's hand still closed over her wrist.

He guided her out of the club with a faint touch under her elbow, keeping them together through the crowd on the sidewalk outside. There was a line of taxis at the kerb, waiting to ferry home the patrons. Viggo held the door open for her, closed it behind her, crossing to the other side.

Alone in the cab, cross-lit from one side with streetlight, from the other with flashing red neon, she could feel the blur of the vodka, making everything seem disconnected, making her eyelids droop, making the world unreal. Maybe it was that fey mood, but Liv wasn't really surprised when, as Viggo slid into the cab beside her, her door also opened. She turned, looked up into clear brown eyes, and Orlando's trademark smirking grin.

"Shove over," he said cheerfully. "There's room for one more."

She slid across, taking the middle seat, as Orlando got in, closed the door behind him. His hip bumped against hers, bumping her in turn into Viggo, as they settled. Orlando sprawled with apparently listlessness, but his leg bounced, thigh brushing against hers as he stared out the window at the passing scenery. On her other side, Viggo leaned back against the seat, eyes closed, and his shoulder warm against hers.

It was fine, she told herself.

They turned a corner, jostling them one against another. Fine.

There was a hush in the cab; Viggo's breathing, her own, sounding faster and louder than she liked, and Orlando humming quietly to himself, the music that had been playing as they'd left the club. He began to drum the rhythm on his leg, fingers brushing against her thigh, and Liv hoped no one else heard the slight catch of her breath.

Viggo settled himself more comfortably, crossed his arms over his chest. And as he did so, his thumb trailed, with impossible casualness, down the side of her arm.

Not fine. Not fine at all.

She couldn't believe she was here. That this was happening. Soon, she'd wake up on Orlando's bed, movie night finished, and find this whole week had just been a dream. A dream. The script popped into her head: I thought I'd strayed into a dream.

"Just out the front's good?" the driver asked over his shoulder.

Viggo stirred. "It's great," he answered, and turned to look at Liv. "Want to come up for a nightcap?"

She looked at him, his face perfectly composed, but that glimmer of light in his eyes. She felt movement on her other side, turned to find Orlando looking back at her. There was the faintest smile on his face, and the same glimmer in his eyes.

She knew it was reflected in her own.

Viggo paused just inside the room to turn on a lamp, the low light making soft shadows on the walls. Orlando crowded in behind Liv, kicked the door shut behind him. As he stepped up closer behind her, Viggo turned to face them. Liv felt Orlando warm against her back, his hand tracing down her hip, his breath against her cheek as he murmured: "Such a pretty, spying elf princess. What shall we do with her?"

Liv could practically taste the humour on his tongue, feel it tickling along her neck. Her eyes were locked on Viggo, simply standing there, until Orlando reached out from behind her, hooked his fingers through Viggo's belt, and tugged him close, against her. She gasped, Viggo swooped, and his lips captured hers.

Technically, she'd done this before, but Aragorn kissed Arwen like she was something so indescribably precious, a treasure, not as though she was a challenge, a puzzle he was determined to solve. Firm, determined, delving for answers.

Liv raised her chin slightly, tilted her head, met his tongue with her own. She arched against him, felt Orlando mould against her back, their arms around her, around each other, trapping her. She burned, mind and soul and body. Burned with fierce clarity, seared with the heat of Orlando's mouth against her shoulder, teeth and tongue, pushing the thin strap of her dress down her arm. Viggo's hand was moving between her and Orlando, but she didn't know who he was caressing. Didn't care.

They were a tangle of hands, of clothes, of intentions. Clothing was shed, tugged off in two separate directions, fingers tangled. Liv extricated herself, sat on the corner of the bed in her underwear to take off her shoes. When she looked up, they were wrapped around each other, skin against skin, sliding, hungry mouths, more real than she had ever imagined. She watched, entranced, as Viggo's hands pushed Orlando's jeans down, over his hips, falling with a heavy slither to the floor.

A chuckle jerked her attention upwards, to bright eyes regarding her over Viggo's shoulder. "She's watching us again." As Viggo turned, Orlando wriggled out of his arms to loom over her, push her back onto the bed with hands on her shoulders, and then his insistent tongue against hers, faster, more vitally urgent than Viggo's had been.

The bed sagged beside her, and Orlando broke off to turn to Viggo, their mouths meeting, moving together with the elegant give and take of lovers, the ease of familiarity. She didn't shiver, just felt the burn of desire deep inside her, acknowledged it, let it claim her.

"God," Liv breathed as the kiss ended, the two of them nuzzling a little. "You two have been driving me crazy."

Orlando grinned, shifted his weight above her, as Viggo smiled, more enigmatically, but no less seductively. "Well then," he said, voice low, resonating through her veins, "you must allow us to show how truly sorry we are."

In the dark silence of early morning, Liv slid from the bed where two male figures slept, tangled together inextricably. She slipped back into her dress, and gathered up her shoes. There was a mirror above the lamp just inside the door, and she smiled at her reflection. How had that glimmer ever bothered her?

She turned the lamp off, closed the door quietly behind her.

And left them together.

END