Mouse Trap
by Kay

Orlando sat up straight in bed, jarred awake by the sound of a high-pitched scream coming from Dominic's room.

His first fuzzy thought was, Hmph, sounds like Dom�s got a screamer on his hands tonight. It was quickly replaced by, Wait a minute, Dom didn't bring anyone home. Maybe something's wrong.

Orlando started to edge out of his bed...but hold on. Dom did swing both ways. There was always the possibility that he was in bed with one of the other damn hobbits. Orlando sat there for a minute, trying to repress that little surge of envy and jealousy at the possibility of Elijah being in Dom�s bed. He stayed completely still, one foot touching the floor and the other one still in bed, body hovering in indecision.

A second scream made up his mind. Screw worrying if he would be interrupting anything; that sounded like a scream of terror. He ran out to Dom's room and didn't even bother to knock on the door before he slammed it open. What he saw froze him in his tracks.

From the bright moonlight filtering through sheer curtains, Orli could make out Dom�s shape. He was sitting in the middle of his bed, legs pulled up to his chest and clasped there with white-knuckled hands. He was shaking like a maniac, eyes darting around the room, and he didn't even seem to notice Orlando's presence in his doorway. God, but it was freaky. Orlando had never seen Dom in such a worked-up state the entire time he'd known him. After a couple of silent moments observing his friend, Orlando finally found his voice.

"Dom? You okay?"

Dom's eyes immediately shot to Orli's figure, frozen in the doorway. Orlando hardly had time to register the pure terrified panic in Dom's eyes before Dom hissed, "Get the hell over here!"

And Orli obeyed automatically, more alarmed than he had been in recent memory. He practically ran across the room and catapulted himself onto the bed. Was there some kind of deranged killer hiding in the shadows? A quick look around revealed nothing.

"What is it?" he demanded, impatient after spending a few silent, watchful minutes next to Dom. Of course, it didn't help that Dom's right hand had latched onto his knee almost the moment he landed. And damn, but he had it in a brutal grip!

"Shut up!" Dom's grip tightened even more, and Orlando just barely restrained an undignified yelp. They stayed in that position a good five minutes longer: Dom curled in on himself, completely on edge, looking and listening for something undefined while Orlando grew more and more frightened, wondering what in the blazes could get fearless, unflappable Dom so ruffled. Finally, he couldn't stand the suspense any longer.

"Dom," he burst out, wrenching his knee from the other man's grip and facing him. "What the hell is going on?"

Dom's demeanor changed instantaneously. The expression of intense concentration edged with fear morphed into a look of...was it embarrassment? Orli didn't know, seeing as how he'd never actually seen Dom embarrassed. If he was anything, Dom was about the most shameless person Orlando had ever met. Oh, but this seemed to get more intriguing by the minute.

"What's going on Dom?" He asked the question again since Dom was trying to ignore him, twisting the sheets between his fingers, staring down in rapt concentration, and generally avoiding Orlando's eyes and question. And yeah, it might've been kinda cute if Orli hadn't been so impatient.

He grasped Dom's chin in one hand, pulling his face up until it was only inches from his own. Dom could hardly look anywhere but at Orli's eyes.

"Let me ask again, honey. What is wrong? What made you scream at 2:00 in the morning and so rudely interrupt my sleep?" Orlando enunciated slowly, and he could feel Dom's jaw clenching in his hand. In a quick and unexpected movement, Dom's chin was jerked out of his hand, and he found his thumb gripped painfully between Dom's teeth.

"Ow! What the fuck was that for?" Orlando yelled, jerking his hand back and examining the damage carefully. Huh, only teeth marks. Dom hadn't bit hard enough to break skin.

"That's for being so bloody patronizing, you shit! For your information, my IQ happens to be a good bit above that of your average Briton."

Well, at least Dom was back to being Dom, Orli supposed. "Okay, okay! I'm sorry," he conceded, chuckling. "But why were you so freaked out in the first place? You really scared me."

"Promise you won't make fun of me?" Dom asked, face apprehensive.

Normally Orlando would've thrown back something like "Now you know I can't make any guarantees!" But Dom's expression was so open and vulnerable that Orlando took mercy on the little guy, who could look surprisingly innocent and hobbit-like even when in a rumpled bed with another man, wearing only a pair of boxers. Orlando dragged his mind back to the current situation with some effort.

"Of course I won't," he answered sincerely, rubbing a comforting hand up and down Dom's smooth back.

"Well," Dom began, then paused. He took a deep breath, and Orli found that he was holding his own breath in anticipation of Dom's revelation. "I saw a mouse," he finally confessed, eyes wide and liquid, gazing into Orli's earnestly.

And Orlando really couldn't help it; his breath was released reflexively, coming out in a weird choking laugh. He caught the betrayed look in Dom's eyes, but his body just wasn't obeying his mental demands to shut the hell up. Instead, it was forcing loud laughter from his belly up through his vocal chords and out his mouth. He couldn't make it stop. However, a solid punch to his bare stomach did the job, halting the laughter as he gasped for air.

When he was composed again, he leveled a reproaching gaze at Dom. Dom was apparently unashamed, though. He simply smiled in satisfaction. "Told you not to make fun of me."

"Look, I'm sorry! It's just a little amusing that Mr. 'Bring on the spiders, Peter, they don't scare me' would freak out so much over a mouse."

"No, Orli, that's totally different," Dom protested, shaking his head emphatically. "See, I can handle spiders because they just sorta crawl around, basically harmless. Crickets, even. I don't mind them because they just hop around and you can kill them with a shoe...Though they are freaky when they fly. I hate that." Dom shuddered, then continued with his rant. "Mice, though. I can't stand them!"

"Oh, c'mon Dom," Orlando started to speak, but was interrupted by an outburst from Dom.

"Scurrying!" he practically yelled. "It's all that scurrying about that's the worst! And you can't just step on them, noooo. Because it would be all blood and gore, and you could hear their little bones crunching, and BLECH!"

Orlando pulled back slightly, a bit alarmed by Dom's vehemence. The guy actually looked like he might get sick. "Ummm...I'm sorry?" he offered tentatively.

But Dom's mind was already working frantically. "I can't go back to sleep," he said, turning to Orlando and smiling entreatingly. "Will you turn on my light, please?" Orlando got up without protest and flipped the light switch. "Anything else?"

"Yes, I would like some shoes, please."

Orli walked to the other side of the room where Dom apparently got undressed, judging by the rumpled piles of clothes and several discarded pairs of shoes. He grabbed a pair and turned back to Dom, but his choice was refused.

"No, not flip-flops. I need my tennis shoes."

"Dare I ask why?" Orlando tried and failed not to sound amused.

"Did you not hear what I said about scurrying? The last thing I need right now is to feel something touch my foot, making me freak out because I think it's a mouse. Or worse yet, to actually feel a mouse scurry across my foot," Dom explained, making it all sound perfectly reasonable.

Orlando shrugged and turned back to trade the flip-flops for a pair of gray sneakers. "These all right?" He held aloft the pair in question.

"Yeah, they'll do," Dom said, grabbing a pair of socks from the bureau drawer by the bed. Orlando held the shoes out for Dom, but he received another pleading look. "Could you, like, check them out first? Make sure nothing's inside?"

With a good-natured groan, Orlando complied, lifting the tongues and examining the insides carefully. "They're clean," he stated, and looked up to find Dom staring at him with distinct horror. "What now?"

"God, I would never pick them up and just look inside like that. There's no telling if some disgusting little vermin could come flying out and land on your face!"

"Oookay," Orli replied, thinking distractedly that Dom had one fucked up imagination. That whole mental image was one that he could have gone the rest of his life without experiencing. "Well, here. Put your shoes on."

Dom did as he was told, and Orlando watched him, noticing the way Dom's tongue stuck out the corner of his mouth just a tiny bit as he finished tying the laces. Now that was kinda cute.

Orlando was lost in thoughts of how he'd like to put that tongue to work, so he didn't realize that Dom had said something until those questioning gray eyes met his. He started guiltily. "What?"

"I asked if you could grab a clean shirt from my closet," Dom repeated.

Shirt? That didn't sound like a good idea to Orlando, who was rather enjoying the view of Dom's bare chest. It was so perfect, hairless and smooth, leanly muscled, and Dom's nipples were puckered a bit from the cool temperature. Yay, cold air! Orli thought. Aloud, he asked, "Why do you need me to get it? You've got shoes on now."

"I know," Dom replied, staring down at his clasped hands. "But...the closet's all dark and closed, the perfect hiding place for that damn mouse. I don't want it jumping out at me the minute I open the door!"

"Oh, but it's okay if it jumps out at me," Orlando stated, an expression of mock-hurt on his face. Then he rolled his eyes. "Like that's the first thing a mouse thinks to do: leave a nice, dark hiding place to jump at the person who wants it dead. Great plan."

"It would be a great plan," Dom insisted. Orlando's brow furrowed in confusion, and Dom clarified his statement quickly. "People always say that mice and spiders and stuff are more scared of people than we are of them. I think they'd take advantage of the very fact that we do fear them to scare us even more. Fuck, if a mouse jumped out and started chasing me around, you can bet your ass that it has a better chance of survival than if it just hid out. See? Because then I'm even more frightened of being attacked, and I'd just as soon move out than wait for it to attack again!"

Orlando just stared at Dom for a few minutes. Huh, that all sort of made sense in a bass-ackwards kind of way. Now what was he supposed to be agreeing to? Oh, yeah..."Fine, I'll get you a shirt," Orlando said, turning to the closet. He eased the door open slowly, aware that Dom was staring at his back in apprehension. Probably waiting for a vicious, fang-toothed mouse to leap at Orlando's face, rip it off, and eat it for breakfast. Orlando wasn't comforted by the thought that Dom would probably scream and flee in terror if that happened.

Reaching up, he tugged the light on, surreptitiously scanning the floor. Just in case. Satisfied that the coast was clear, Orli looked up to grab a shirt, only to find that the closet contained nothing but empty hangers. Well, that and one lone shirt hanging at the very back. It gave Orlando a wicked idea.

"There aren't any shirts hanging up in here," he said, facing Dom as his concealed hand pulled the shirt off its hanger and tossed it onto the floor. "Just one on the floor. Do you want it?"

Dom gaped at him, horrified. "No way! I have to do all my laundry now, make sure there's no mouse shit on it. Then I'm buying some of those big plastic containers so that I can seal all my stuff away."

Orlando managed to repress his grin at the prospect of a bare-chested Dom. "Uh, maybe you could buy some rat poison instead, so that you wouldn't have to worry about keeping anything out of your stuff."

Once again, Dom seemed absolutely scandalized. "Are you kidding? Poison is the worst possible thing to get! Then the mice munch away at it, and when it takes effect, they're already back in their dark, hard-to-reach hiding places. They die, and their stinky, rotting corpses have to be found and disposed of."

The detailed, colorful description had Orlando grimacing, but Dom didn't even seem to notice. He just continued his diatribe, eyes wide and hands gesturing wildly.

"Traps are the way to go! You set the dumb bastards up by making them think you've kindly left them some food. The minute their grimy little paws go for it, BOOM! They're either dead or as good as. And that way, you know exactly where to find the nasty buggers!"

Not for the first time, Orlando asked himself why exactly he found such a psychotic, strange little man so attractive. But then Dom grinned the wide, crazed smile that could easily be mistaken for someone on acid, and Orli remembered. Oh, yeah. 'Cause he was adorable and fun to be with no matter what the situation. And that was saying something, especially since Orli was wasting his precious sleeping hours to listen to Dom's ramblings about mice, of all things.

"All right then, Dom. You do whatever you want. I'm going back to bed where it's warm and a bit more peaceful."

"You mean you're not going to stay here and protect me?" Dom asked, sounding and looking pathetic as he hugged himself and shivered.

"Sorry, mate," Orlando replied, now feeling cruel about dumping Dom's last clean shirt on the floor. The poor little guy must be freezing. "But I'll get you one of my shirts to wear," he offered, turning to head for his own room. "I'll be right back."

Orli headed straight for his closet, swinging the door open to peruse the contents. He grabbed a gray wool sweater and turned to go back to Dom.

"Holy shit!" Orli nearly dropped the sweater in shock when he came face to face (okay, more nearly Dom's face to his neck) with Dom. "What are you trying to do, give me a massive coronary at the tender young age of 23?"

"Sorry," Dom apologized sheepishly, looking adorably contrite. "I just...uh, thought I'd make sure nothing was in your closet. Y'know, not like clothes, but a mouse. Yeah."

"Yeah," Orlando humored him. Dom shivered again, and Orli remembered the sweater. "Oh, here. Put this on before you freeze to death. Or before some mouse decides you look good enough to eat." Oops. His voice hadn't come out quite as jokingly as he'd planned. It was more husky and suggestive.

Luckily, Dom didn't seem to notice. He just pulled Orlando's sweater over his head, mussing up his hair even more. The sleeves fell over his hands, covering all but the tips of his fingers. It was adorable (Orlando knew he kept repeating that word, but it was just so fitting) and arousing at the same time. Seeing Dom in his sweater made Orlando think of what it could be like to have both of their clothes strewn around his room, marking a haphazard path toward the bed. Then it wouldn't matter whose clothes they put on in the morning. Hell, Orlando would give Dom his entire wardrobe if he wanted it.

"Heh, I bet this is the one normal shirt you actually own. Thanks," Dom laughed.

Okay, so maybe the little twerp couldn't have his wardrobe. "Do you want me to exchange it for another one?" he threatened. "I can do that, you know. I happen to remember how much you adored my pink turtleneck..."

"That's okay!" Dom interrupted, smiling hugely and fakely. "I wouldn't want do deprive you of it."

"Well right now you're depriving me of sleep. Go away," Orlando demanded, waving a dismissive hand at Dom and turning his nose up.

"You're such a queen," Dom teased.

"Ah, but you love me for it!" Orlando replied, grinning.

Dom stared at Orlando for a moment, face serious. "Yeah, I do," he finally answered, leaning forward to kiss Orlando on the cheek.

Orli stood frozen to the spot as Dom turned and left the room. Now that had been unexpected.

Orlando jerked awake later that night, not quite sure what it was that woke him. He lay quietly for a while, hoping to fall right back asleep, but no such luck. Damn, but his new trend of waking up in the middle of the night was just not going to work.

In the dark, he thought he hear a rustle. But no, it had to be the fan stirring something. Orlando lay still, trying to suppress the part of his brain that was lingering on Dom's claim of seeing mice. There was no way there could be mice in the house. And that, Orlando told himself firmly, was that.

Almost the moment that thought went through his head, another rustling sound issued forth from the far side of his room, and Orlando tried to fight down rising panic. He was just being paranoid. Dom had just put him a little on edge. Nevertheless, he pulled the pillow out from under his head so that he could cover his ears. No need to be worrying about any of those little sounds.

It was decidedly harder to breathe with a pillow over his head, but Orlando was nearly asleep within a couple of minutes. He was hovering on the edge of unconsciousness when something happened that he couldn't ignore: one of those little sounds came from underneath his bed. He heard it through the mattress, and okay, calm denial time was over. There was definitely something in his room.

In a matter of seconds, Orlando was sitting straight up in bed with his bedroom lamp on. The soft blue bulb cast light to the corners of the room without being too bright. Orlando sat in bed a few more minutes, just listening and looking. Of course he didn't really want his suspicions confirmed, but he simply couldn't go to bed without knowing for sure. His heart was beating a mile a minute, and a creepy-crawly feeling had begun to pervade his entire body.

A few uneventful minutes later, Orlando was just about ready to turn off the lamp and attempt to catch some more sleep. But then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a movement. And holy shit. That was a fucking mouse poking its head just out of a shadowed haven, probably checking to see if the coast was clear so that it could scurry its nasty arse around his room.

Orlando didn't even think about it, just picked up the nearest object and chunked it at the offending creature. Or maybe not at it, because the mouse was already gone. And shit. It didn't matter that the mouse was now out of sight, because just hearing and seeing it had ruined everything. It was one thing to deny to himself that a mouse could be in his room when logic argued that the odds of the creature staying exclusively in Dom's room were non-existent. But now he'd seen it with his own eyes, and he couldn't go back to his happy time of self-delusion. Orlando sighed. No more sleep for him tonight, then. Stupid-arse mouse. It was bad enough to know that his living space was being invaded by vermin, but for it to interrupt his precious sleeping hours? Not fair.

"Okay, listen up you little bastards," he addressed his entire room because he was sure there were more mice where the once came from. "This is my room, not yours. I don't want you here, so if I so much as catch a glimpse of even one of your wormy little tails again, you'll all regret it. I suggest that you vacate these premises immediately. Either that or be prepared to die a slow and painful death!"

And yeah, Orlando felt kinda dumb speaking to creatures who couldn't understand him, but still. He was sure as hell going to make good on his threat. No one woke him up at 3:30 a.m., not without dealing with the consequences. Well, except maybe Dom.

Orlando reluctantly turned on his overhead light, scanning the floor for any activity. Luckily, he saw no disturbance, so he raced to his discarded tennis shoes. He started to put them on, but thought better of it. He turned the shoes upside-down and pounded them against the floor because...well, no telling what could have been inside them. Then, satisfied that the shoes were clean, he pulled them on and surveyed his room with a critical eye. No fucking way was he staying in there.

Quietly, he crept out of his room and down the hall. Dom's door was closed, but the light was shining through the cracks. Orlando nudged it open and little and peeked in. There was Dom, sitting in the middle of the bed, much like the way Orli had found him a couple of hours earlier. This time, though, Dom's head was nodding forward, and it was obvious that he was on the edge of sleep.

Once again Orlando was indecisive. He didn't want to bother Dom, but neither did he want to be alone in his room. Well, not as alone as he thought he'd been, apparently. That thought made up his mind. He opened the door silently and edged into the room. Tip-toeing across the carpet, he made it to the foot of Dom's bed with no disturbances. Orlando decided he's slide into the bed very quietly so that he wouldn't startle Dom. However, as he reached down to remove his shoes, he ungracefully lost his balance, falling over onto the bed. Legolas would be so disappointed.

Dom awoke with an undignified shriek, brandishing a huge stick (where the hell had he gotten that?) from behind his back. Orlando managed to fend off the blow with one of his sneakers just in time.

"Dom! Calm down, it's just me!" Orlando yelled, grabbing Dom's wrists to prevent any damage.

"Oh, thank God!" Dom sighed, leaning into Orlando to hug him. Orli could feel the frantic pace of Dom's heart, and he felt horrible for causing him to panic. "I didn't think R.O.U.S.'s existed outside of The Princess Bride, but I was pretty convinced there for a minute."

Orlando laughed despite himself. Trust Dom to think of something like that. He felt the smaller man relaxing into his embrace, and he let himself relax, too. It felt nice to be so close to him. Felt great in fact. So great that Orli was bound to embarrass himself if he didn't stop the touchy-feely stuff very soon. He started to pull out of the embrace, but Dom held onto his arms and didn't let him get far away.

"What?" Orlando asked.

"Would you...uh, stay here? With me, I mean. I think that I could be okay and get some sleep if you were here. You know, protecting me and all," Dom explained, blushing.

"In case you didn't notice, I came in here to get refuge from the mouse in my room. I don't think I'll be that great of a protector," Orli pointed out wryly.

"That's okay," Dom replied after a pause. "We'll take care of each other."

Then his lips were on Orli's, warm and soft. And Orlando thought that maybe mice weren't so bad, not if they could get him into Dom's bed, into his arms, devouring his mouth.

Dom pulled back after several more kisses, lips dark and slick, tempting Orli to capture one more kiss. He did, and then he and Dom settled into each other's arms, comfortable. "Yeah, I think I feel more than safe enough here with you...Even if you scream like a girl."

"Shut up!" Dom punched Orli on the arm, then kissed him one more time. "I'm tired, and I'm damn sure going to get some sleep before makeup."

"What about the mouse?" Orlando asked.

"You know, I don't think I'm worried about it anymore," Dom said, smiling drowsily. One last kiss and he fell asleep in Orlando's arms.

Orlando stared down at Dom's peaceful features, feeling so very lucky to be where he was. God bless that mouse, he thought. After all, I don't want it going to hell when we set that trap. Then he, too, was asleep.

Hardly an hour later, Dom was in makeup, inexplicably bouncy and happy for having gotten hardly any sleep. When Elijah came in after a few minutes, Sean and Billy raised their eyebrows at Dom's excited shriek.

"�Lijah! God, you would not believe the night I just had. I now concede; you are absolutely brilliant! A fucking mastermind," Dom praised, grin impossibly wide.

Elijah smirked knowingly. "I take it that my little plan worked, then?"

If possible, Dom�s grin widened even more. "Like a charm. Best money I ever spent. But do you think the pet store will take OrliBait back? I think Orli actually plans to kill him."

END.