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*
“Why is there a plant on the kitchen table?” Richard asks, voice still rough with the last vestige of sleep. It’s a fair question – as far as he knows, no plant has survived for longer than a week whilst in the vicinity of either of his lovers.
Aidan, who is clutching a cup of coffee with almost pitiful desperation, mumbles something incoherent. He doesn’t even look up, eyes drooping, and Richard’s lips twist into a fond smile; Aidan, for all his catching enthusiasm at times, has never been much of a morning person.
It really is a rare and glorious occasion when they’re called on set earlier than he is, allowing him to sleep in in peace – Richard would be rather more sympathetic to Aidan’s plight, if the little shit wasn’t usually far too smug about Richard generally having to get up earlier than his two ‘nephews’.
Dean, looking slightly more awake, perhaps due to the already empty cup sitting next to his arm, does meet his eyes and even manages a small smile.
“I think it’s James’,” he says, moustache braids wobbling in time with the movement of his lips.
For a moment Richard’s gaze stays riveted to the blond strands (he rarely gets to admire his boys in full make-up, usually already submerged in Thorin’s headspace far too much to think of them as anything but Fíli and Kíli, sons of his heart), then he rips his eyes away and turns to frown at the plant instead.
It’s not a particularly striking plant – rather unlike James himself – dark evergreen leaves fanning out in every direction innocently, but painful experience has taught him that whenever James is involved it pays to be careful, and if you valued your sanity, even paranoid.
“Why does James have a plant?” he asks, frown still firmly in place. “And what’s it doing here?”
Dean shrugs. “You were voted most likely to keep it alive for a few days while he’s away in Ireland. Unanimously. It’s your fault for always being so responsible, love.”
Richard raises a brow. “Did he conveniently forget who I’m living with? I’d say you two balance out my responsibleness without much effort.”
“Oi!” Dean protests, though it is rather half-hearted.
Having expected to hear at least some noise of dissent from Aidan, they both turn to the last member of their trio – and smile in unison. Aidan has fallen asleep, one arm splayed over the table, the other dangling from his chair, some of his wig dangling perilously close to his still unfinished coffee.
Without thinking about the action, Richard reaches out and gently brushes the hair back. Aidan makes a quiet snuffling sound, but doesn’t wake.
Dean shakes his head fondly. “Look at him. Utterly ridiculous.”
Richard can only agree. With a last, slightly suspicious look at the plant he moves over the small kitchenette. “Have you had breakfast yet?” he asks quietly, modulating his voice as not to wake Aidan. He would have to be up soon enough for their next call, but for now Richard wouldn’t begrudge him a quick nap.
Dean shakes his head. “There was no time, we were already late.”
Richard almost sighs. Both Dean and Aidan complain when he, quote unquote fusses too much, but it’s things like these that make it all but impossible not to. Sometimes he wonders how they would ever have survived the shoot without him.
By the time he’s finished breaking eggs into a bowl and has whisked them, Dean has returned to a slumped position and doesn’t look much more awake than Aidan.
Humming lightly as he watches the eggs solidify into golden fluff, Richard smiles to himself. One might get the impression that the two youngsters haven’t slept at all last night, they way they’re acting. No stamina there. (Or rather, all their stamina had gone into other, rather more fun activities.)
A plate full of eggs and toast set right in front of his nose is enough to rouse Dean from his stupor, the promise of food overriding his desire to imitate a hibernating badger. Aidan slumbers on.
“When’s your next call?” Richard asks quietly, settling down next to Dean with his own food.
Dean checks his watch. “Half an hour.” He glances at Aidan. “Someone will be grumpy.”
“The make-up ladies are used to it by now,” Richard snorts. “This crew is entirely composed of sleep-deprived people after all.”
“You’d think making a multi-million dollar movie would be less stressful.” Dean mumbles around a mouthful of egg.
“’To err is human’” Richard quotes with a grin, and Dean groans.
“Are you still doing that? I thought it was supposed to be a joke, Rich.”
Richard’s grin only widens. It was indeed a joke at the beginning, him throwing random quotes into their conversation to tease both of them for their admitted literary disinterest – but then they’ve always reacted so beautifully, and Richard has found it too enjoyable to give it up again; he keeps subtly riling them, having found a good use for his passion for reading,.
Dean’s head thumps onto the table. “You’re evil.”
“Just think of it as an education.” Richard pats his wig consolingly. “At least I’m not quoting Shakespeare anymore.”
He can’t see Dean’s face but he just knows he’s making a face against the wood. “Jesus, don’t remind me. That was the most depressing collection of quotes I’ve ever heard.”
Richard is silent for a moment, gaze distant. “A wretched soul, bruised with adversity, we bid be quiet when we hear it cry; But were we burdened with like weight of pain, as much or more we should ourselves complain.”
Dean stirs, looks up at him, softness tinged with worry shining from his eyes. “Where’s that from?” he asks quietly, shifting to bring their bodies closer to each other.
Richard blinks once and turns to look at Dean, awareness returned to his eyes with answering fondness. “The comedy of errors, ironically enough. Somehow that quote has always stuck with me, from the first time I read it. It’s a good one to remember when people are being frustrating.”
Dean nods silently, his arm and side a warm presence against Richard’s, and goes back to his food. One must have priorities after all.
Twenty minutes later, all plates but Aidan’s have been scraped clean, Aidan’s still snoring gently, and the plant still hasn’t spouted fire or started shedding everywhere despite its dubious origins.
They also only have ten more minutes until they need to be on set and, exchanging a regretful glance, Richard and Dean move to wake Aidan.
Pressing a kiss to Aidan’s partially obscured forehead, Richard gently shakes his shoulder and murmurs, “You need to wake up now, darling, we’re needed on set.”
Aidan comes awake with a start, arms flailing wildly enough that only Richard’s quick grab for it keeps his half-filled mug of cold coffee from upending.
“’m awake!” he mumbles, squinting at their faces with a disoriented look for a second. “Wait, we’re not on set?”
“No, sleepyhead,” Dean tells him affectionately. “But we need to be there in six minutes, so get going.”
“You could’ve woken me sooner,” Aidan grumbles, taking one look at the cold sludge in his cup and making a face.
Richard raises an eyebrow. “And have to deal with you being even grumpier than usual for the rest of the day? I think not.”
“I’m not that grumpy,” Aidan protests, though rather unconvincingly as his face does currently present a perfect picture of grumpiness.
Dean just pats him on the back consolingly. “Don’t worry, we still love you.”
That at least draws a smile from Aidan and Richard can only smile along. It’s not often they get these soft, quiet moments, away from stress and expectations.
A glance at his watch reveals that they’re already a couple of minutes late. For once Richard doesn’t care too much, his gaze still caught on these two magnificent people in front of him, who, for some reason, have chosen to share this, to share them, with him. Peter will just have to deal with them missing for the first few minutes because this, this moment he takes to appreciate what he has, is needed as well, necessary to his continued well-being and sanity. They all have different ways of coping with the stress that filming a multi-million adaptation of one the most popular English children’s books inherently brings, be it skype calls with family and friends at home (Martin and James, mostly), the occasional night out (everyone), a glass of wine in the evening after shooting (guilty), trouncing others at play station football matches (Stephen), reading some obscure play for reasons unknown (Ian), going around randomly hugging people (Graham), or teasing the more hapless of the cast (Ian again, along with Martin – Richard could swear they have some sort of strange competition going). For Richard, aside from the glass of wine, it’s these simple moments of reflection now and then that keep him going. After all who would not be cheered up by being privileged enough to call not only one amazing person their significant other, but two?
*
That night, Richard drags himself back to their apartment at one in the morning, bone tired and barely able to see straight. As so often, they were kept late to do more takes of the same action sequence – spiders, spiders, and more spiders – and then, after the lengthy but familiar process of de-dwarfing, Richard was drawn into a meeting with Peter and Phillipa about possible changes to Thorin’s part in upcoming scenes – which went on until his yawns had become too big to ignore.
He does his best to be quiet in opening the door, tiptoeing through the hallway, fully expecting Aidan and Dean to be asleep already. He goes through his evening routine entirely on autopilot, the toothpaste barely enough to banish the taste of fake blood from his lips and tongue.
When he finally opens the door to their bedroom, Richard is quite surprised to find the small bedside lamp burning with a mellow light – he hadn’t even noticed its shine coming through the slit of the door. His two lovers are indeed in bed, however rather than in the lightly snoring, supine position he’d expected, they’re sitting up propped against the headboard, cuddled close to each other.
He’s too tired even to wish for a camera to forever capture the sweet picture they’re presenting.
“You needn’t have waited up for me,” he tells them quietly, but the weariness in his voice must still be audible, for they both straighten with identically slightly worried sympathetic looks on their faces.
It seems to Richard as if they’re suddenly standing in front of him in the blink of an eye.
“We wanted to.” Dean murmurs against his lips, followed by a short, chaste but nonetheless sweet kiss. He seems to be aware that Richard wouldn’t be up for anything more tonight.
Meanwhile Aidan had circled around and is now gently but insistently herding Richard towards the bed, a solid presence at his back.
“Let us take care of you,” the younger man whispers, his voice a warm breath of air in Richard’s ear.
Somewhere in his tired brain there’s a voice that tells Richard that he should protest, that he can take care of himself and doesn’t need to be fussed over, but for once he decides to ignore it. Not having to do anything right now sounds very tempting and Dean’s warm voice telling him ‘let us help you for once’ only cinches it. He relaxes into the hands guiding him forward and onto soft pillows, while others coax him out of his clothing and into more comfortable pyjama bottoms.
By the time the blanket is being drawn over all three of them, Richard’s already half asleep, content in their warmth and companionship. Tomorrow can wait.
(It should surprise no one to hear that during the night James’ bloody plant somehow manages to fall off the table and spread leaves and dirt everywhere. It certainly doesn’t seem to surprise James, when a rather irate Richard shoves the plant into his arms as soon as he’s returned, mumbling something that sounds very much like ‘damned thing, never again’.)