The Immortal Highlander

Title: The Immortal Highlander
Author: Phoenix
Fandom: RPS and mentions of rph/fph
Sequel/Series: The Immortal Highlander
Pairing: Colin Farrel/Orlando O'Bloom, Hints at Liam Neeson/Orlando and Brad Pitt/Orlando
Rating: Heavy R but will go up
Category: Romance, AU, Fantasy, Angst, HC,
Archive: Here and anywhere else please ask me.
Warning: This chapter None.
Summery: He was kicked out of paradise, put under a most terrible curse and only one person can help him get back to Paradise. But when he falls in love will he the most devious of the fae tear out his beloveds immortal soul?
Disclaimer: I own nothing of the story that I am rewritting into a slash story, as I own nothing of the actors that I am using to replace the characters of the wonderfull story by Karen Marie Moning of the same name.

Cincinnati, Ohi
Several Months Later...

Summer, Orlando O'Bloom brooded - always his favorite season - had bloody sucked this year. Unlocking his car, he got in and slipped off his sunglases. Shrugging out of his suit jacket, he nudged off his leather loafers and took slow deep breaths. He sat collecting himself for a few moments, then tugged free the elastic restraing his hair and massaged his scalp. He was getting the start of a killer headache. And his hands were still shaking. He'd nearly betrayed himself to the Fae. He couldn't, he'd been so stupid, but, God, there were just too many of them this summer! He hadn't spotted a fairy in Cincinnati for years, but now, for some strange bizarre reason, there were oodles of them.

Like Cincinnati was some kind of great place to hang out - could a city be more boring? Whatever their unfathomable reason for choosing the Tri-State, they'd appeared in droves in early june, and had been ruining his summer ever since. And pretending he didn't see them never got any easier. With their perfect bodies, gold-velvet skin, and shimmering iridescent eyes, they were a little hard to miss. Drop-dead gorgeous, impossible seductive, dripping pure power, the males were walking temptation for a guy like him to - Brusqeky he shook his head to abort that treacherous thought. He'd survived this long and was damned if he was going to slip up and get caught by one of the erotic - exotic he corrected himself impatiently - creatures. But sometimes it was so hard not to look at them. And doubly difficult not to react. Especially when one cought him off guard like the last one had. He'd been having launch with Viggo Mortensen, senior partner at the law firm Mortensen, Bean and Urban, at a posh downtown restaurant; a very critical lunch, during which he'd been interviewing for a post-graduate position. A soon-to-be-third-year law student Orlando was serving a summer internship with Neeson & Parker, a local firm of personal injury attorney's. It had taken him all of two days on the job to realize he was not cut out for representing pushy, med-bill inflating plaintiffs who were firmly convienced their soft tissue injuries were worth at least a million dollars per ache.

At the opposite end of the legal spectrum was Mortensen, Bean and Urban. The most prestigious firm in the city, it catered to only the most desirable clients, specializing in business law and estate olanning. What carefully selected criminal cases they chose to represent were renowed precedent-setting ones. Ones that made a difference in the world, protecting fundamental rights and addressing intolerable injustices. And those were the cases he hungered to get his hands on, even if he had to slave away for years, doing reserch and fetching coffee to get them. He'd been stressed all week, anticipating the interview, knowing M,B&U hired only the cream of the crop.

Knowing he was compiting against dozens of his classmates, not to mention dozens more from law schools around the country in a cut throat bid for a single opening. Knowing Viggo Mortensen had a reputatuon for demanding nothing less than highgloss sophistication and professional perfectism. But thanks to hours of aggressive practice interviews and pep talks from his bestfriend, Ryan, Orlando had been calm, composed, and in top form. The aloof Mr. Mortensen had been impressed with his schoolastic achievements, and Orlando had gotten the distinct impression that he, Mr. Mortensen really thought he would help the firm, which put him ahead of the competition. The lunch had gone swimmingly, until the moment they'd left the restaurant and stepped out onto Fifth Street.

As Mr. Mortenses was extending that all-important invitation to come in for a second, in house interview with the partners (which was never arranged unless the firm was seriously considering making an offer, joy of joys!), a sexy, muscle bound fairy male sauntered right between them in that infuriatingly arrogant I'm-so-perfect, don't-you-just-wish-you-were-me way they had, so close that is long tawny hair brushed Orlando's cheek like a sensual ripple of silk. The intoxicating fragrance of Jasmine and sandlewood surrounded him, and the heat radiatting off its powerful body caressed him like a sultry, erotic breeze. It took every ounce of his considerable self-disipline not to inch backwards out of it's way. Or worse - yeild to that incessant temptation and just pet the gorgeous tawny creature. How many times had he dreamed of doing that? Cooping one tiny forbidden fairy-feel. Finaly finding out if all that golden fairy skin really felt as velvety as it looked.

You must never betray that you can see them, Orli.

Thoroughly discombobulated by the fairy's proximity, his sudden nerveless hand lost its grip on the iced coffee, he'd taken from the restaurant in a to-go vup. It hit the sidewalk, the top flew off, and coffee exploded upwards, drenching the impecable Mr. Mortensen. At that percise moment, the fairy turned back to look at him, it's iridescent eyes narrowing. Panicked Orlando focused all his attention on the sputtering Mr. Mortensen. With a cry of schook bordering on hysteria, he plucked tissues from his pocket and dabbed franticly at the spreading coffee stains on what had been, moments before a pristine ivory suit, that he had a sick feeling cost more then he made in a month.

Babbling doftly about how his nerves finaly caught up with him, apologizing and blaiming how before he was still in shock that they were even interviewing him. Orlando was startled when a strong hand caught his wrist in a firm but gentle hold. Stuned he looked up into the gentle blue eyes of Mr. Mortensen.

"Its alright Mr. O'Bloom," He pauses while still holding Orlando's hand. "Though you are sxtremly talented at what you hope to become, I sadly think you would be much better off as a rich mans pet. To be pampered and cared for by someone who will adore you. Now this might be forwards of me but I think that man might be me." Mr. Mortensen pauses once more as his thumb caresses the soft skin of Orlando's palm. "I can tell that my proposition has stuned you, so here is my own personal card. Please call me with you answer, even if it takes a few months." And on the final note Mr. Mortensen drops Orlando's hand and gracefully accepts the keys to his pearl-colored mercedes.

Completly flabergasted Orlando dimly regerters the fairy had blesedy thought him a bewildered human, was also moving on. Orlando had learned the har way that people had zero tolerance for the unexplaneable. It never ceased to amaze him what flimsy excuses they dredged up to protect their perception of reality. "Gee, I guess I didn't get enough sleep last night." or, "Wow, I shouldn't have had that second (or third or fourth) beer with lunch." If all else failes they settled for a simple "I must have imagined it." How he longed for such oblivion! He shook his head no point in getting moody, he might not have gotten the job, but he did get a tempting proposition from a hot older gentleman and at the least the fairy had been convinced of his bewilderment and was gone. He was safe. For now.

The way Orlando figured it the Fae were responsible for ninety-nine percent of the problems in his life. He'd take responsibility for the other one percent, but they were the reason his life this summer had been one crisis after another. They were the reason he'd begun to dread leaving his house, never knowing where one might pop up, or how badly it might startle him. Or what kind of ass he'd make of himself, trying to regroup. They were the reason his boyfriend had broken up with him 36 days, three hours and - he glanced at his watch - fourty-two minutes ago. Orlando O'Bloom harboured a special and ver personal hatred for the Fae.

"I dont see you. I don't see you," he muttered beneath his breath as two mouthwatering fairy males strolled past the hood of his car. He adverted his gaze, caught himself then angled the rearview mirror and pretended to be fussing with his curls.

Never look awat too sharply, His grand father Ian O'Bloom, had cautiond. You must learn to let you gaze slide over them with-out either hitching or pulling away too abruptly, or they'll know you know. And they'll take you. You must never betray that you can see them. Promise me Orli. I can't lose you!

Papa had seem them, too, these creatures other people couldn't see. Most of the O'Bloom son's on his fathers side did, though sometimes the 'gift' skipped generations. As it had with his had, who moved to los angeles years ago (like the people in california were les weird then fairies), leaving then-seven-year-old Orlando behind with papa 'Until he got settled.' Eric O'Bloom had never got settled.

Why couldn't it have skipped me? Orlando brooded. A normal life was all he's ever wanted. And proving damned difficult to have, even in boring Cincinnati.Orlando was begining to think that living in the Tri-state - the geographical convergence of Indiana, Ohio, andKentucky - was a bit like living at the mystical convergence of Sunnydale's Hellmouth. Except the midwest didn't get demons and vampires - oh, no - they got faries: dangerously seductive, inhuman, arrogant creatures that would take him and do God-only-knows-whatto him if they ever figured out that he could see them.

His family history was riddled with tale of ancestors who's been captured by the dreaded Fae Hunters and never seen again. Some of the tales claimed they were swiftly and brutily killed by the savage hunters, other that they were forced into slavery to the Fae. He had no idea what actually became of those foolish enough to be taken, but he knew one thing for certain: He had no intention of ever finding out.

~~~~~~~~
Later Orlando would realize that is was all the cup of coffee's fault. Every awful thing that happened to him from that moment on could be traced directly back to that cup of coffee with a stunning simplicity of an airtight conditional argument: If not for a (said cup of coffee), then not B (blowing the job interview but surprisingly getting an offer to indulge his submissive side for life), and not C (Having to go into work that night,) and certanly not D (The horrible thing that happened to him there) ... on to infinity.

It was not fair that such a trivial, spur of the moment, seemingly harmless decision such as taking an Iced coffee to-go could change a boy's life. Not that he didn't hold the fairy signigicantly culpable, but studying law had taught him to isolate the critical catalyst so one could argue culpability, and the simple facts were that if he hadn's had the sup of coffee in his hand, he wouldn't have droped it, wouldn't have splattered Mr. Mortensen, would have gotten the job not a proposition of life-pet. But because of the nefarious cup of coffee, he didn't go out. He went home, took a long bubble bath, had a longer cry, then later that evning, when he was certain the office would be empty and he wouldn't have to field humiliating questions from his fellow interns, he drove back downtown to catch up on work.

He was behind a whoping nineteen arvitations cases, which, now that he didn't have a different job lined up, mattered. And because of that calamitous cut of coffee, he was in a bad mood and not paying attention as he parallel-parked infront of his office building, and he didn't notice the dark, dangerous-looking fairy steping from the shadows of the adjacent alley. If not for the stupid cup of coffee, he wouldn't have even been there. And that was where things took a diabolibal turn from bad to worse.