A Good Plan

A Good Plan

Posted: January 2003
Title: A Good Plan
Author: Belinda, Doom's Eyebrow
Type: RPS
Characters: Harry/Karl
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimers: This is a work of amateur fiction that has no correlation with, nor intends any implication in regard to, the real lives of the people whose names it uses as fictional characters.
Warnings: Coarse language. Real person slash.
Author's Note: I: On the occasion of the birthday of the wonderful Brenda, who let these two into my head in the first place. Of course, they've proceeded to put their feet on the furniture and refuse to shag on cue. Not sure if I need to do this any more, but for the neophyte reader: Harry played Isildur, yeah? And everybody knows who Karl is now, I should hope. Before LOTR, they worked on a film called "The Price of Milk" together (www.priceofmilk.com). "Simon the sound guy," as far as I know, doesn't exist.

Summary: When Harry came back from the bog, Karl was reading.

*****

When Harry came back from the bog, Karl was reading, shadow of sycamore leaves on his cheek, out on the lawn. There weren't a lot of guests you could do that with -- leave for a sec, and come back and they were reading, diligently, something they'd brought with them.

It was the script, of course. Harry could still remember the silence on the end of the phone when he told Karl *The Price of Milk* had no script. Hah.

Harry got beer out of the fridge. When he looked at Karl through the window -- dark hair, pale face, curl of shadow -- Karl looked exactly how Harry thought of him as looking. Too serious, or maybe just serious enough -- it depended.

Before they started filming *Price*, Karl was ringing him twice a week to talk about the character. That was one thing, but sometimes Karl would just casually drop remarks about the additives in your chocolate milk. If you complained about backache, he would get you on the ground and do things with your legs for it. Once they'd got out of a car and there was a bird on a fencepost, and Karl had said, "Rosy-breasted chaffinch." Harry had been too terrified to ask.

Karl had a kid now, too. Karl was younger than Harry. Shit, eh.

Good thing Karl was always working. In New Zealand, that was quite something. Plain shit roles, some of them, but Karl was in there, paying the bills. Harry -- what was Harry doing? Not always paying the bills, that was for sure. Today he was just dropping by the *Rings* set. He'd done his Isildur shebang ages ago, but today he thought he'd just drop by, get in the way, rib Pete -- and apparently ask Karl over for a beer, but that hadn't been in the initial plan. But this was a good plan too.

The sycamore shadow went twitch, twitch, tickle on Karl's face, and Harry took the beer out.

Out on the lawn, in the sun, Harry put the beer down beside Karl, and sat down himself.

Karl's eyes moved down the page. The leaf shadows danced, and a magpie carolled. At last Karl looked up, looked at the beer.

"You haven't gone vegie and stuff again, have you?" Harry said.

"Yeah mate," Karl said, picking the beer up. "I've been trying to, um..." Harry's grunt stopped him trying to twist the top, and he took the bottle opener Harry waved at him. "Avoid all the pig fat in beer."

"I dunno, mate," Harry said. "Can't remember not to twist a Heineken."

Karl shrugged and took a swig. Over where Karl was looking, the jacaranda trailed purple froth down the roof. "Place is looking nice," Karl said.

"Yeah," Harry said. "It's the time of year."

The good thing was, if your guests were just going to start reading on you, Harry thought, then you could just as well take your shirt off and have a snooze in the sun on them.

"Don't get sunburnt, mate," he heard Karl say.

"Too good to waste, this is," Harry said, settling back and closing his eyes.

The heat pressed in on Harry's skin, close as a blanket. The inside of Harry's eyelids simmered rust-red. The magpie gurgled some more, and Harry did not hear Karl pick up the script again.

"Come on," Harry said, opening his eyes, "you're wearing too much." He tugged at the side of Karl's t-shirt. "The kid'll be twenty before the melanomas come up. Live a little!"

"Yes, sir," Karl said. "Will I just take it all off?"

"Now that's an offer," Harry said. "Can I sell tickets?"

Karl's snort was muffled by the t-shirt coming off over his head. "Think anyone'd pay?"

"I did," Harry said, and winked. But Karl's eyes were already closed -- he'd lain back on the grass.

Harry was pretty sure Cupid had never had freckles on his shoulders. Karl had an entrenched t-shirt tan, too. The Xena people must've had to pancake him good once they got him into that wing harness. He wouldn't have complained -- he never did.

The paleness of Karl's bicep above the tan line lingered on Harry's retinas when he closed his eyes.

You'd never say Karl wasn't game, Harry thought. At least they hadn't wanted him to go blonde again in that ridiculous Titanic-meets-Fright-Night outing -- about all the good you could say about it.

Karl said, "You're a sly bastard."

Harry opened his eyes, and reeled briefly as the light lanced in. "Eh?"

"I just found out, the other day," Karl said, his cheek turned into the grass, "about you and Simon. The sound guy."

Harry sat up. "What about me and Simon the sound guy?"

"I think you know," Karl said.

"Do I?" Harry said.

"Where's Simon?" Karl said, in a quite un-Karl-like voice. "Simon will know. Why don't we ask Simon?"

"What," Harry said, when he had collected himself, "has that got to do with anything?"

"Everything," Karl said, grinning. "Or, you know, nothing." He lost his momentum. "I just wanted you to know I was on to you."

Karl sat up. When Harry met Karl's eye, Karl looked down almost immediately.

"Well," Harry said, "you're on to me, then."

"Yep," Karl said.

The fence creaked in the breeze, and the shadows fingered the lawn.

Karl had another quick go at looking at Harry, but Harry still hadn't looked away from last time. And because of that, it seemed that Karl didn't think he could get away with dropping his eyes this time.

"You, um," Harry said, after a bit. "You've got grass on your back."

He slid over towards Karl, until Karl's thigh was warm along his.

There was a moment, and Karl said, "You wanna, uh."

"Yeah," Harry said. He began finding the grass on Karl's back. He did a little more fingertip trailing and a little less brushing than was strictly efficient. Karl leant against him more than was entirely helpful.

"Speaking of sly. You, um," Harry said. "You come over here to seduce me?."

Karl's breath came quickly against Harry's throat. "How'm I doing?" Karl said.

"Pretty good," Harry said softly. "Yeah." He began looking for grass on Karl's stomach.

There was some head bumping -- Harry half-voiced an "Oops" -- and the warmed-up keratin smell of Karl's hair. Then there were lips and tongues, and Karl tasted like bright, yeasty Heineken, and something else that was maybe herbal tea drunk some time ago, and the copper of the blood close to the surface in the inside of his mouth.

Harry pushed Karl down on the grass and rolled on top of him. Their legs and arms got tangled, and while they were trying to get that sorted out one way or another, the sun shifted a little in the sky.

The magpie seemed quite oblivious. Harry would've thrown something at it, but, well.

"You *are* burning," Karl said, one palm curving over Harry's shoulderblade.

"How do you know it's not just," Harry said, licking below the corner of Karl's jaw, "displacement of blood?"

"It's sunburn," Karl said. His hand groped out across the grass. "I've got suncream."

Harry caught and pinned down Karl's wrist. "Pretend you don't," Harry said.

*****

THE END

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