Quiet on the set. Coffee break, smoke 'em if you've got 'em. Elijah's got 'em, so he shakes one from the pack, pinches it in his lips and lights it behind cupped hands. He takes a drag and lets the smoke form gentle threads of grey in the still air of a summer's evening. They are losing daylight, but Peter is consulting The Book, and Elijah knows they will do the scene again and again, until they get it right.

He crouches, and watches people mill about for a moment before a flash of something bright catches his eye. He follows it until the voices of the production crew fade into a murmur in the back of his mind, and he settles on a cluster of boulders. It is Orlando, with the long hair and bow of Legolas, practising swordplay in the fading sunlight.

He moves fast and silently, with only the occasional huff of breath. The blades cut through twilight and reflect the last shards of daylight, streaking like hurried comets caught in the atmosphere. Sometimes, Elijah thinks there might be the faintest halo of light resting in the length of Orlando - Legolas' - hair.

It's not until the sun is long gone behind the trees that Orlando pauses for breath, resheaths his knives, and notices Elijah skulking nearby. "Hey."

"Yeah."

Orlando is suddenly very close, and Elijah can smell the outdoors on him. He doesn't know how he managed to close the distance between them so quickly. He looks up and sees Legolas, and for a moment he isn't sure Orlando is under there, at all.

He bends down and Elijah thinks he's going for the cigarette, so he offers it up only to have his wrist taken into a firm hand and pushed aside. A mouth finds his in the dark and for a moment there is no sound - no birds, no night-bugs, no production crew twenty feet away. Just a soft tongue nudging his lips apart and pushing past his teeth, sweeping in and the taste of coffee mingles with clove, warm and wet and in an instant gone, sweeping quickly across his lower lip and leaving it cold and shivering against the cool air. Elijah opens his eyes; he doesn't remember closing them.

Legolas is now yards away again, bow in hand and aiming imaginary arrows carefully at the stars, precise and graceful, a haunted creation of shadows and moonlight. Elijah licks his lips but is afraid to speak, or swallow, that he might lose this sweet, slightly salty taste on his tongue. He does not close his eyes or move. He does not want to wake up.

The cigarette in his hands has burnt down to nothing, and he yelps in pain when the heat touches his fingers. Legolas lowers his bow and looks over, eyes glittering, and silent.

Then he smiles, and Orlando returns.