mijan | RPF Fic: "Other Side of the Coin." C. Pine, K. Urban, (PG)

Title: "Other Side of the Coin"
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,150
Notes: Comment fic inspired by these pics on the "Daily Captain and Daily Doctor" over on the

jim_and_bones community. This is NOT slash, but you could read it that way, if you really wanted to.
Disclaimer: I have NO delusions that this actually happened, and if Chris Pine or Karl Urban were to ever stumble across my humble corner of the internet and see this travesty, I hope they could forgive this as the silly daydream of a fan with too much free time at work.

Summary: Chris takes an impromptu vacation to New Zealand, and decides to swing by a Tolkien convention to surprise Karl with a box of American cookies that the man seemed to be addicted to while they were filming Star Trek. Unfortunately, in a Tolkien convention, not many people know who Chris Pine is, including the security guard.

*********

"Trust me, he'll want to see me. I've got to get this to him." Chris grinds his teeth and tries to affect a smile that looks adequately persuasive to the diminutive security guard wearing Vulcan... no, Hobbit ears.

"Yeah, I'm sure you do," comes the reply with the Kiwi lilt that has become so familiar. "You and every other obsessive Karl Urban fan in the crowd who has a personal gift that they just have to give him."

"Obsessive Karl Urban fan?" Chris says incredulously. "Come on, I've worked with the guy!"

Furry little eyebrows narrow skeptically. "What? Were you an extra in the Two Towers or something? That doesn't count."

"No! I..." He bites his tongue before he starts cussing. It wouldn't do any good anyway. It's quite obvious that the guard-Munchkin isn't about to let anyone in to see the Wizard without a damned good explanation, and Chris really doesn't really want to play the celebrity insider card just to say hi to his buddy and drop off a box of cookies. Why the hell he ever thought it was a good idea to show up at this Tolkien convention to surprise Karl... it had seemed like a good idea at the time... What the fuck was I smoking?

With a sigh, Chris rewinds himself and throws his pride to the wind. "Listen, I know he's back there. It's at least ten minutes before the panel begins. Could you at least tell him that Chris Pine is here to see him?"

Obviously, the guy hasn't heard of him, based on the scowl he throws at Chris. "You really think you're something special, don't you?" The guy's arms fold across his chest with a huff of self-importance. "I'll go tell him that Chris Pine is here to see him."

With the whirl of a cloak, the guy disappears through the door. And Chris begins pacing. He's actually fucking pacing. A few people walk by in the access hallway, some dressed as elves and wizards and other Tolkien creatures. And, of course, not a single person would recognize -

"Oh... my God... are you Chris Pine?"

Normally, when he's somewhere on private business, those words make the hair on the back of his neck stand up, but after being completely anonymous while walking around openly at this convention, it's almost a relief for someone to know who he is. He turns around with a broad grin and greets the two young women who are actually dressed like normal humans, although one has a t-shirt in an Elvish-style script saying something about 'if you can read this, I've got your ring.' It makes him chuckle. "Yeah, hi. I didn't think anyone from a Tolkien convention would recognize me."

"Seriously?" the taller of the two girls asks. "Any decent geek worth her salt follows all the men of Star Trek." She tilts her head to the side. "Although Julie's been a fan of yours since Bottle Shock."

The second girl waves in a faux-timid manner. "I watched it for Alan Rickman - Harry Potter and all, ya know - but you were good, even with the crazy hair."

Chris can't help raising his eyebrows in surprise. "Oh... well, thank you. And I'm sorry, I'd love to chat, but I was just here trying to find a friend of mine. I don't make it to this hemisphere very often."

One of the girls goes wide-eyed. "You're here to see Karl?"

Am I that fucking transparent? "I was hoping to. He's a good friend."

The other girl eyes the box meaningfully. "A little something?"

Suddenly feeling self-conscious, Chris pulls the box closer to himself. "A little American treat he swears he can't find around here. I thought he'd like it."

A pair of matched grins, slightly devious, light up the girls' faces. One says, "This has got to go on my Livejournal."

The noise of the crowd at the end of the hallway grows, and the girls notice. "Shit, if we're going to get decent seats... or any seats... we'd better get back to the line. Beth won't be able to hold our places much longer."

Chris smiles for them, poses for a quick picture snapped on a cell phone, and is left waiting in the empty hall. Finally, the little Hobbit-man comes back out from the green room, scowling.

"Mr. Urban said, and I quote, 'Chris is back in the States. Is some wanker pretending to be him just to get back here? Now I've heard everything.' Which means he doesn't want to see you, not-Chris-Pine."

Chris opens his mouth, ready to dig out his passport and face the guy down, but breathes a sigh of surrender. He never let Karl know he was going to be in the country - it was a last-minute vacation destination inspired by Karl's descriptions of the New Zealand countryside... and his promise that it was a good place to get some privacy. But Karl had no reason to expect him around, so it was perfectly reasonable for the Security Hobbit to turn him away. And by now, Karl would be getting ready to go out on stage. There are some battles that just aren't worth fighting.

Chris looks out at the growing crowd in the atrium, down at his small box of cookies, and then back out at the crowd. It's a huge cluster of people gathering to watch Karl's panel. Well, the “Men of Middle Earth” panel, as the convention programming booklet calls it.

Then, he notices the two girls he'd just spoken to, almost clear at the front of the line. He glances at the little security guy, and says, "Thanks for nothing," then hurries down the hall.

A moment later, he’s wormed his way through the crowd, still somewhat amazed that nobody seems to recognize him, until he taps one of the girls on the shoulder. “Hey, uh… would you mind if I joined your group?”

The girl spins around, wide-eyed, then says to a third young woman he hasn’t met yet, “Oh my god. See, Beth! I told you it was him!” Then she collects herself quickly. “Of course you can join us! But… didn’t they let you in to see him?”

Chris shakes his head. “Apparently, I’m an Chris Pine impostor trying to fake my way into the green room. Obsessed fan or something.”

The tall girl laughs. “That’s actually kinda hilarious. But you know what? It would be even better if… oh my god. Oh my god. If you come in to the panel... you have to get into the front row. And then when they take questions –”

The three girls break out in rapid-fire chatter so fast that all Chris can pick up are random references to Jim and Bones and the acronym “RPS.” Whatever that means. But then the line starts moving, and Chris is swept up in the flood of people pushing into the auditorium. He’s been to fan events and panels, but never from this side of the stage. It’s… interesting. He’s caught in the rush and the excitement, and one of the girls is pulling him by the sleeve, saying something about needing to beat the crowd to the front and that he’s got to get an aisle seat. Energized and amused, he lets himself be pulled along.

In a whirl of people and cloaks and fake ears, Chris finds himself squeezed through the crowd and pressed into a seat in the second row, on the outside end of the row. It’s not front row, but he’s got a direct line of sight to the chairs set up for the panel on the stage.

The girl next to him grumbles to herself. “It’s not perfect, but you should be able to get his attention.” Then she grins. “This is going to be so epic.”

Chris can’t help himself, and he frowns slightly. “What do you mean?”

She starts to open her mouth, then claps her hand over it, holding back giggles. “You have no idea, do you?”

But before he can ask, there’s an announcer onstage, and the Men of Middle Earth are being announced. He doesn’t really give a shit until the panel moderator is announcing the “Son of the Riddermark, Rider of Rohan, Eomer himself, Karl Urban!”

And there’s Karl, waltzing onto stage, grinning like the incredible geek that he is, already playing with the crowd. Chris grips the corners of his box a bit tighter.

As the panel opens up, the guys start talking about practicing horseback riding skills, costuming, and backstage antics… the usual role-prep work and off-camera fun that the fans like hearing about. Chris keeps waiting for Karl to look down, but he’s so far off to the side of the audience that the man’s gaze never quite sweeps in his direction.

He isn’t sure when he stopped hearing everything the panelists are saying, but he’s just fixated on watching Karl’s face. His goofball expressions. His reactions to fans. The way his fingers splay across his own chin, fiddle with the cord on his microphone. The behavior quirks that had become so familiar while they were filming Star Trek. The –

An elbow against his arm pulls him from his thoughts. He shakes his head and looks at the girl sitting next to him. “What?”

“They’re about to start fielding questions. Now’s your chance. But there will only be time for a few questions, so you’d better jump quickly.”

Chris raises an eyebrow – or tries to. He’s never been good at that. “You guys really know how to work this.”

“You have no idea. Oh! Here they go!”

“… so now we can take some questions from the audience,” the panel moderator says as he climbs down off the stage with a cordless microphone.

Across the crowd, hands shoot up, and Chris is surprised when the girl grabs his arm and thrusts his hand up into the air, hissing, “I told you, you’ve got to be quick! Shit, let’s hope they saw you.”

He never realized how competitive it was in the crowd at one of these conventions, and as the people in the audience take their turns to be called by the panel moderator, Chris keeps finding himself overlooked.

He swears he’ll never take for granted how much it might mean for a fan to get that chance to ask that one burning question… even if it’s something he’s heard a hundred times before. Hell, he’s practically vibrating on the edge of his seat, and all he wants to do is give a box of cookies to a guy he worked with for months. But he’s in the audience, and Karl is on the stage, and the experience has just turned itself on its head. Karl is answering questions, surveying the audience, but never once looking in his direction. Chris is itching just to be seen. He can actually feel his legs twitching.

“Keep your hand up!” the girl whispers. “If you drop it, they definitely won’t call you.”

Chris nods at her, then glances at the clock on the wall. The hour-long panel is almost over. The moderator says, “Okay, we’ve got time for one more question.”

Chris is mentally debating what to do, when he suddenly feels himself being shoved from his chair. Barely managing not to stumble, he catches himself and stands up, shooting a look of utter shock and irritation at the girl, who is looking up at him and winking.

He can’t say anything before the moderator is walking over to him, saying, “And I guess we’ll take our last question from the obviously determined young man up front here.”

Never one to be shell-shocked or without words when a microphone is presented, Chris actually skips a beat as he looks from the microphone being held in front of his mouth to the stage, where Karl has finally seen him and is staring at him with this look that has no proper description in the English language.

Feeling a bit like a star-struck teenager, but more like a frat-buddy pulling a thoughtful prank on one of his brothers, and awkwardly a little bit like he’s courting someone with a box of chocolates… he holds out the box towards Karl and says, “Hey Karl, I was in the neighborhood, and wanted to bring you some Keebler Grasshopper cookies, but there was a Munchkin outside the green room who told me that nobody gets to see the Great Oz. But do you still want the cookies?”

Karl’s expression slowly morphs to a broad grin, then dissolves into laughter. It’s a look of utter delight that Chris hasn’t seen in months, and it’s a brilliant sight. Finally, the laughter settles a bit and Karl looks at him with a piercing gaze, eyes still crinkling in amusement. The rest of the room might as well be empty.

“I think I’d like that.”

Current Mood: dirty

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

ewinfic.livejournal.com

This is adorable. Adorably adorable. With extra adorbs on top, just for fluffy good measure. <3 <3 <3

(I rarely read this pairing, but had to because you wrote it, and I'm very glad I did.) :D

From:

mijan.livejournal.com

See, I didn't really write it as a pairing. It could be taken that way, but it was more that I saw Chris just stopping by with a surprise for a friend. It was ridiculously fluffy, but I giggled insanely at the fandom meta. (Also, I can write Chris and Karl as a friendship. I CAN'T write Chris and Zach as a friendship because they're just too... too... PINTO. So I feel safe writing Chris and Karl.)

Also... I almost CHOKED laughing over your icon. Seriously. I... kinda need it. Who made it? Can I steal it?

And THANK YOU for reading my humble little ficlet. You're the queen of RPS, and I am but a humble imposter.

Yet another in a long series of diversions in an attempt to avoid responsibility

RPF Fic: "Other Side of the Coin." C. Pine, K. Urban, (PG)

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