Metaphors and Camomile Lawns
Two in the morning. Elijah turned the key in the lock on Liv's door and quietly entered the house. She'd given him the key a few days previously after a long conversation about homesickness and sometimes feeling the need to just know someone else was within shouting distance. "Come over anytime, no matter how late and don't worry about waking me, you can always crash on the couch, ok?" Her concern had made all the difference. Trying to analyse why she affected him on such a deep level he had finally decided that in some weird way she was acting as a proxy for Hannah. The thought was comforting.
He walked through the darkened house and noticed a vague light coming from the kitchen. He stopped in the doorway and leant against the door-jam, "Hello Orli."
"Hey Lij." Orlando was sitting at Liv's kitchen table with a steaming mug of tea in front of him.
"Seems you had the same idea as me. Was Liv up when you got here?" Elijah smiled at Orlando and tried not to show on his face the emotions flitting through his head. Since the incident in his garden the week before, he had spent a great deal of his off-time trying to work out what, if anything, Orlando's actions had meant. After a day of thrilled anticipation and then a couple of days of total confusion, he had decided that actually, they didn't have to mean anything. Now, faced with Orli in the half light looking completely gorgeous, he wasn't sure how he felt.
Orlando smiled back, "Yeah. She fought off exhaustion until she was falling asleep at the table, so I packed her off to bed promising not to make too much mess. I'm sleeping here tonight, didn't really feel like being alone."
Elijah nodded. He tried to remember whether Liv only had the one guest bed, and realising that she did, let himself get used to the idea that he would be going home later. He felt an unaccountable sadness at the thought.
"You want some camomile tea?" Orlando was gesturing at the Chinese teapot on the table. When Elijah nodded he stood up, got another mug and poured the hot, yellow tea into it. He pushed the mug across the table as Elijah sat down opposite him.
The first sip brought a grimace to Elijah's face. "Bitter. I think I need something to sweeten it." In reply Orlando handed him the pot of honey that he had used to take the edge off of his own tea. They grinned at each other.
"So, Mr Baggins, what brings you to Arwen's boudoir at this ungodly hour? I hope you weren't thinking to take advantage of our gorgeous elf?" Orli settled back in his chair and smirked at Elijah.
"God no! I just felt like some company really. I mean, I figured she'd be asleep but it's just knowing she's there that matters." Elijah shrugged and stared down into his tea.
They sat for a while quietly sipping their drinks, lost in their own thoughts.
It was Orlando who broke the silence, "Have you ever seen a camomile lawn?" Not waiting for an answer, he continued, "Probably not, it may be an English thing. Well anyway, when I was little we had these elderly neighbours, Mr and Mrs Harper, who spent most of their time in their garden. They used to open it once a year for visitors and were really proud of it. It was wonderful. Me and my sister would watch them over the fence and sometimes they gave us greengage plums from the tree. Anyway, one small patch of the lawn was always perfectly trimmed and different from the rest of the grass. This was their camomile lawn. It's really hard to maintain and you have to be really careful not to crush it because it's not hardy or anything. But, if you're really gentle, when you do crush it, it gives up the most amazing smell. One time they actually let us lie on it. It was lovely, the smell was heady, intoxicating. We felt as if we were being given something really special when they let us lie there. I suppose there was little chance of us doing much damage but still, we felt pretty honoured as neither of us had ever seen anyone else be allowed to even put a finger on it!" He stopped speaking and gazed down at the table smiling.
Elijah looked at Orlando, wondering if this little story was some sort of metaphor. Camomile lawns and - and what? Was Orli trying to tell him something? He wondered what it meant, picking at each word to find some hidden meaning. He couldn't seem to get a handle on what the point of it was and figured he was probably missing some significant piece of information. Probably culturally specific. There seemed to be a lot of culturally specific stuff in his life these days which he usually didn't mind, in fact he loved using his new britspeak, except that now he really wanted to understand and felt a little frustrated that he couldn't work it out.
He was pulled out of his reverie by Orlando's hand coming to rest over his own. He stared at it and held his breath. Exhaling he raised his eyes to look at the man sitting opposite. Oh dear, here we go again.
Orli tilted his head at an angle and lowered his voice to a whisper, "What's wrong? You've suddenly gone all pensive."
Elijah took a deep breath, "I was just wondering what it means. You know, metaphorically. The camomile lawn thing. If it's some kind of metaphor."
"Metaphor for what?" Orlando looked at him with an unreadable expression on his face, "You know Lij, please don't be offended by this but, you do have a tendency to over-analyse things. Sometimes you just have to go with it and not think that everything has to mean something other that what it appears to mean. There's nothing wrong with thinking, but it can get in the way of living for the moment, and that's not always a good thing. A camomile lawn could simply be just that, a camomile lawn. Nothing but a special memory that happened to pop into my head because I'm sitting here in the middle of the night, feeling a little lost and homesick, in a country thousands of miles from home, with someone I adore, drinking camomile tea." Orli shrugged and began to fiddle with the spoon from the honey pot, twisting and turning it, trying to keep the honey running off.
"Sorry. I'm crap, aren't I?" Elijah had at first felt a little irritated by what Orlando was saying to him, that was until Orli reached the bit about being with someone he adored, at which point Elijah suddenly felt a lot better. Confused (perhaps a little), hopeful (definitely), giddy (decidedly), but definitely better. He looked at Orli. Orli did a very good job of not looking back at him. In fact, Orlando was doing a very good job of making pretty patterns with the honey as it ran over the bowl of the spoon and back into the pot. Elijah wondered what to do next. Go home? Yes, that was definitely what he should do next. He wasn't quite sure why that was what he should do, but it seemed like a pretty good idea at this point. He'd go home, go to bed and consider what being adored by Orlando actually meant. If it meant anything at all. He was thinking again. Uh oh. But then, why change the habit of a lifetime?
He got up from the table and moved around to the other side. Orlando, who was still playing with the honey, looked up at him and smiled shyly. Elijah bent his head and noted that as he did so, Orli tilted his face up towards him as if waiting for something.
What Orlando was waiting for was the kiss. He'd been waiting for the kiss since he had tasted Elijah's scent in the garden. He closed his eyes in case being stared at was putting Elijah off. Nothing happened. Opening them again he noticed the perturbed expression on the other man's face. Shit, he's thinking again. Orlando decided a certain amount of encouragement wouldn't go amiss, so he tilted his head some more, closed his eyes again and let his lips part a little in what he hoped was an inviting manner. He heard Elijah let out a sigh. Then, instead of a warm soft mouth against his lips, he felt a strong grip on his wrist and his hand being pulled upwards. His eyes flew open and he stared as Elijah dipped his head and brought the hand holding the honey spoon up so that the thick, sweet, viscous honey could pour into his mouth, coating the tongue which was extended to catch the drips. A small thin dribble trickled out and down his chin and Elijah let go of Orli's hand in order to wipe it away. Before he could do so, Orlando placed his hand gently against Elijah's cheek, cupping his face. They stared at each other. Orlando ran his thumb firmly across the square jaw and up the chin, catching the errant honey. He then pushed his thumb into Elijah's mouth.
The lips closed slowly over the thumb and Elijah closed his eyes and began to suck, running his tongue across the pad, licking and sucking until he had removed the last traces of honey. Once he was sure that he had cleaned off all the sweetness, he pushed Orli's hand away and licked his lips. "Night Orli."
Orlando sat at the table until he heard the click of the front door. Realising that he had been holding his breath, he exhaled. He looked down at his hands and saw that they were shaking slightly. One hand still held the honey spoon and the other the ghost of Elijah's tongue. Smiling to himself, he put his thumb in his mouth and sucked. He tasted Camomile, honey and the citric tang he had recently come to associate with Elijah. He got up from the table and, taking the honey pot with him, went to bed.