There was a cardboard box in his bedroom, the length of it from his wall to the door, its height coming up to his knees. It was the newest one, usually closed and taped over. There was too much paper on the underside of the tape, and it didn't stick very well anymore, but that was alright. It just made it easier for Sean to open it at the end of each day, and there were so many creases on the edges of the box from how he opened it so often.

The first time he picked out an empty box from the trash was twelve years ago, and he had been filling it up ever since. The box had grown longer and longer throughout the years. Sometimes Sean thought that he should get a plastic box with wheels underneath, or a wooden one. He had to change boxes sometimes because he tore the top flap when picking them up. But he didn't want to. Besides, wooden boxes were difficult to lug towards his car to bring to locations with him. Plastic didn't suit its contents. Somehow- it just didn't

Sean had been waiting for someone to ask about it for a very long time. But when he first started the collection, Abby had already moved out of the house, and there hadn't been anyone in it except himself for a long time. Then there was Georgina, and she only looked at it and wanted it out of the bedroom, but Sean insisted, and afterwards she just ignored it. She never tried to open the flap; not even when he did. Not even when he added to it. It probably meant something about them, about their relationship, but Sean didn't like to think about that. They didn’t really fit each other, and- maybe she was just a way of stemming off his greatest fear. A way of making sure he didn't die alone, in that big house of his.

(Fucking huge failure, it was. All he got from it was a loss of half a million quid, an even emptier house, and another set of divorce letters to go into his collection.)

He didn't know why he started having that box. It all started, he thought, when he asked his agent to get a credit card under an assumed name. He didn't know why he wanted it, and his agent didn't ask, so he didn't tell. The first thing he bought anything with it was in a small, quaint little shop in America. It took forever, because he only wanted that one thing, and it was hard to find. He could have asked- but he didn't want to. It was the first thing that went into the box- well. He found the box for this.

Recent Forgeries, by Viggo Mortensen.

He had sat on his bed that night, with only the nightlight on, tracing the words on the page. Sean read every single poem three times that night, tasting every word on his tongue, and he memorised them faster and sharper than any of his lines for work. They were good poems; not the classics that he had read in his youth, but he didn't expect that anyway. These were bits and pieces of Viggo's heart, and that was important enough.

Ten Last Night cost him over a hundred quid, in a second-hand shop in the middle of L.A. It was overpriced, the cover a little bent, but Sean had bought it and signed for it with that credit card with a faked name. There wasn't any reason for that; it wasn't like Viggo would find out. But- somehow, if it wasn't his name on the bill that had Viggo's name on it, then maybe it wasn't exactly real. It was like the flaps on his cardboard box: it separated him and... well, something that wasn't exactly him.

It would be ridiculously odd for Sean Bean to collect Viggo Mortensen's works so illicitly, as if it was something... secret, wouldn't it? It was ridiculous for him to buy the books (eventually) from the Perceval Press website under a false name when he could have just asked Viggo for them.

(But it was. He would never admit it, or even think it consciously, but this box of his, with all of Viggo's works that he brought everywhere with him- it was his personal little secret. Sean had taken to locking his bedroom door whenever he had visitors, simply because he didn't want them to see the box. It was his.)

Then it got worse. Better. He started collecting them as they came out, spending exorbitant sums when he couldn’t get them from the Perceval Press website after each one came out. Errant Vine took him six months to find, and it was only a few pages. He knew for a fact that Viggo had extra booklets left after the exhibition; the man babbled to him about it just a few months after Sean had left New Zealand, through the phone. There weren't many people who went, because Fellowship hadn't been released yet. He could have just... asked him for one.

But he didn't.

Now, more than twelve years past, he had Viggo's entire bibliography. Sixteen books, sixteen CDs. All into one box that he brought everywhere with him, and the covers of the books were hardback, but even they could be creased from how many times he had flipped through them. He had memorised every single one of his poems. His spoken words. His stories had become engraved onto Sean's flesh, as indelible as the mark of the Blades, as the Elvish nine.

He wanted bigger love,
had to have it like he
had to dream himself
to sleep. Recrossed
his legs and waited
for her tears. When
they came, he held
her hand, pretended
to be interested in
someone walking by
their table.
- Viggo Mortensen, Just Coffee


***

Viggo kept a box in his suitcase that he brought with him every single day. It had become like a lucky charm, like red underwear of footballers or green socks of businessmen. He had never let anyone see the inside of it- well, it wasn't as if he tried to hide it, but simply that they never tried. Not even Henry, with whom he shared almost everything, had ever tried to look inside the box. Viggo would like to think that his son simply understood that his father had secrets; that it was something almost sacred to Viggo; something he couldn't go anywhere without. Like his paints, like his camera, but infinitely more precious.

(But he knew it might just be that Henry was an adult now. Older than even a teenager, and he had his own life and dreams and his life no longer revolve around Viggo and Viggo's projects. Long gone was the time when Henry looked forward to coming down to Viggo's locations months in advance, or even wanted to stay with Viggo during his locations. Viggo didn't like to think about that. It was a fact of life, but it was one that made him sad.)

Whenever he reached a new location, he would sit down on the nearest table in his trailer or hotel room and open the box. There were dozens of photographs, letters, and notes that he would spread out on the table. There was never a single pattern. He never tried to put them according to chronology, even though he knew exactly which photograph was taken; when he received each letter or note.

Vig, said one, taped onto his trailer's mirror twelve years and a lifetime ago. Hiding from the hobbits and the elf tonight. You forgot your key; left it behind this note.

He placed this one above a picture of Sean, half in Boromir's clothes, half out. Jeans and tunic and chainmail, his vembraces stark black with the White Tree, striking against the greys of his blue jeans and the smoke curled around his face. Sean was frowning, leaning his shoulder against the wall, his hand lax against his hip as he looked out into the distance. There was a blurriness to his foot as he tapped it, and Viggo could see the impatience of nicotine addiction and his contained frustration in the tendons of his wrists, white against white.

There was another piece of paper, half-torn, and there was a little doodle of a man with a sword, fighting with three rather ugly, disfigured little creatures a distance away. There was shading of shadows at the feet of the little creatures, and scribbled writing on the blade of the tiny sword, and Viggo traced his finger above every single penstroke, long dried and set into the paper. The ink was starting to brown. It didn’t matter. Even if the ink had entirely faded, Viggo would still be able to recognise Anduril- helped by the scribble underneath, of stick-man-Aragorn chopping off the head of an ugly orc.

Viggo found this doodle on Sean's makeup table. Sean had left it behind, not realising the little masterpiece he had doodled while on the phone, listening to a Blades match. Viggo wished he had learned how to ask Sean to draw for him, or to ask him to model. He rarely drew people, for his paintings were mainly abstract, but he would draw Sean. Capture the line of his jaw with a pen, the brightness of his hair with paint, the curve of his ankle and lines of his legs and his hips with a sharp-tipped pen. He wanted to draw Sean against the sea, with the waves lapping at his ankles and his pressed slacks rolled upwards, his suit all clean lines stark against the sunset caught in the gold of his skin and his hair. Viggo knew that he would do better to take a photograph- but as much as he loved his camera, he didn't think it could capture Sean’s beauty.

Not even in this one. His favourite photograph. Sean holding a cue stick in his hand, half-leaning against the table. His head was turned away at an angle Viggo had never tried and never wanted to calculate, laughing in delight, in victory. The light had caught his eyes, turning a brilliant verdant green, dancing off the lines set deep into his skin. His shoulders were loose, the heel of one foot lifted off the ground. Against the half-darkness of the bar, he looked like Bacchus descended from the heavens.

Viggo was waiting. One day, he would be able to work with Sean again. He would sit him down, then, on a small table, and show him this collection.

He hoped that it would be soon. The lines on his face were deep, and Henry was so much older now. Sean's eyes showed his age, and his tiredness shone through even with TV screens between them. Viggo could not help thinking that time was running out. He should reach out for him; to take a plane to London with his photographs in his suitcase, and find him through the address Sean had written in large, loopy handwriting and which Viggo had placed, almost reverently, in the box.

He wished he could walk into Sean's garden in bloom, the one that he always wanted to see and which Sean had always wanted to show him. He would sit down at the large wooden table and spread out the photographs, the notes, the letters, and tell Sean what each of them meant to him. He wanted to tell him that each word, each image, was ingrained into his brain.

(Viggo remembered: Sean and him, they were always the Men of the Fellowship. Within the Nine there was another Two, and when Boromir died and Sean left, Viggo could not help but mourn along with Aragorn—for instead of Two, there was now only One.)

Sean had come to him at least three times now, and Viggo had gone to him twice. Nothing ever happened, no matter how much he wanted.

He had always taken a single step back when he could have taken one forward.

… Is
Friendship cancelled
If we can't call
Each other anymore
In amnesia, invite
Ourselves to last glances
Under suspicious clocks
Telling us when we've
Had enough?

There was a certain shade of gold that Viggo had seen once, a few years ago. He honestly couldn’t recall the occasion now, but the colour was haunting him, because he knew that it would be the perfect shade he needed to splatter over his current painting. The metallic paints that he had bought and tried to mix didn’t even come close. Every single time he thought he had just the right shade, it eluded him like a particularly slippery catfish. It was always too dark, too dull, too yellowish… nothing that was exactly like it.

Viggo was getting incredibly pissed off. He just needed this one colour, and he could move on to the next stage of the painting. He had the colour in his head, and he hadn’t had problems mixing his own colours since he just started, over ten years ago. What was wrong with him—

He was broken off from his thoughts by the phone ringing.

“Henry!” he shouted—wait. No, it was in the middle of summer. Henry wasn’t in the ranch with him, of course. Viggo sighed to himself, streaking his entire face with yellow and gold and red as he rubbed his face with his paint-splattered hand. He ignored it, stomping out of his studio to the phone.

“What?”

“… Uh… did I interrupt some kind of genius taking place? If so, I’m sorry,” Dom’s voice hadn’t changed, even though it had been years since they last spoke. Viggo blinked at the telephone. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

“Uh, Vig? I know you’re there. I can hear you breathing; it’s pretty loud.”

Viggo shut his mouth with an audible click. “Dom?”

“Yeah,” there was a sheepish laugh. “Sorry, I know I haven’t talked to you in a while. But I’m kind of worried and I don’t think anyone else would know what to do and I talked to Billy and Billy said that you would be the best person to talk to about it and do something about it and I’m getting kind of worried which is ridiculous because goddamn, he was fine the last time I saw him, the same as always…”

“Dom,” Viggo cut in through the tirade. He put his brush down. It seemed like one of the Fellowship was in trouble. It wasn’t any of the Hobbits—they took care of their own—so… Orlando?

“Slow down. Start at the beginning. What happened? Who is in trouble?”

“Right,” Dom said, taking an audible breath. “Did you see the Daily Mail today?”

“… I don’t read tabloids, and I don’t think they deliver out here.” Viggo wiped his hand on his pants, leaving a bright yellow streak. It added a certain flair to the blue-green-grey-black-grey-silver handprints he had all over the pants.

“Sean was arrested. For domestic assault. I tried calling him, but I think he pulled out the plug on his phone or he changed his number or something—”

Viggo cut in immediately, “That’s ridiculous, Sean would never lay a hand on Christine—”

“Vig,” Dom said, overriding him. “Vig, fuck, I’m talking about Beanie.”

There was a long pause on Viggo’s end. “Dom, it’s not April. It’s July right now, and that’s not funny.”

“I’m not fucking with you, Vig,” Dom said, and his voice was quiet and heavy and Viggo knew that he was perfectly serious. He took a shaky breath, and rubbed at his temple with the back of his fist.

“He hit Georgina?”

“That’s what it’s said. I don’t know. I don’t want to look anymore.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. That’s what I said. That’s what Billy said too. Look- Vig, can you do something? Call him? Maybe he’ll pick up if he sees that it’s you.”

“No. No, I’m not going to call him.”

“Viggo—”

“I’m flying down to London,” and Viggo didn’t even know that he was going to do that until the words were out of his mouth. He could hear Dom take a sharp intake of breath.

“Knew it was right to call you,” he said. “Take care of him, yeah? I don’t think—I really don’t think he would’ve done it.”

“Sean’s a good man.”

“Yeah. Yeah, he is.” There was a pause. “I’m going to hang up now.”

“Mm. Hey, Dom?”

“Vig?”

“Thanks. For telling me.”

“You take care of your Steward, and I’ll consider the debt’s cancelled,” despite the reference, Dom didn’t sound like he was smiling, much less joking.

Viggo hung up the phone. Then he leaned his head against the wall for a moment, letting the information sink into his mind. He couldn’t believe it; he refused to believe it. There must be some other explanation, and he was going to find that out.

He looked at the painting in the studio before he picked up the phone again. The thing could wait. Besides… he remembered the colour that he was missing. He had seen it during the Troy premiere. It was the colour of Sean’s hair when his head was tilted slightly to the side, the Venetian sun shining directly on the blond strands.

When he hung up the phone, he immediately went to pack. And to take a shower.

***

“I’m landing in Heathrow in ten hours or so. I’ve already booked a plane and I’m parking my ass in it in another half an hour, so you can’t stop me. I’m giving you three choices, wanker,” the American twang made the word sound strange and flat, “You can meet me at the airport, you can call me back and arrange a meeting place, or I’m doing some breaking and entering into your house. I’m serious here, Bean. I’ll see you in ten hours.”

Sean took a deep breath and lowered the phone from his ear. That was from seven hours ago. He had listened to this particular message for eight times now, and he still didn’t know what to do.

He had a whole other load of voicemails that he didn’t want to answer. Right now, the last thing Sean wanted to do was to talk to any of his friends. Family was even worse, but at least his pa and ma know how to give up. The hobbit network was clearly still working: Dom had been calling nonstop, Billy called four times (which was honestly pretty sedate), Elijah bombed his phone, and Astin left something like a dozen messages. Ian left a single but very long message and even John (Rhys-Davies) said something. Not to mention the calls he had from Frances (who told him she didn’t believe a word, and oh, don’t call Charlize right now; not that he was thinking about it), Daragh, John (Tams), Jason, Lyndon, (all of whom said they didn’t believe a damn word, but would he call them so Daragh could stop fussing on the phone at them?), and even Maria and Christian. It was as if every single person he had ever worked with pleasantly called him.

(He didn’t hear from Orlando, but by now, he didn’t expect to. The last he heard of the kid was in Malta for Troy; after that it seemed that he became far too big of a star for the rest of them. Or Sean was being unkind and he just didn’t see it. He hoped for the latter.)

All of them called, even those living in London. Viggo lived a continent away, but it seemed like Sean’s one fuck-up was enough for him to take a plane over.

God, he hadn’t seen the man in… he couldn’t even remember how long.

Sean pressed a button. Viggo’s cell went straight to voicemail, of course. He was on a damn plane.

“Look, wanker – yeah, that’s how you pronounce wanker, wanker – look, I think yer starkers, and I ain’t needin’ anyone ta fuss over me.” Sean took a deep breath. “But I’m not havin’ ya near me ‘ouse, God knows what you’d do wi’ it. I’m gonna get a room at the Hilton—it’s right next ta Heathrow, so you can’t miss it even if you can get lost in yer own damn ranch—and you just ask for, uh… John Blade. They’ll give you the number.”

He paused again, trying to find a way to thank Viggo. He couldn’t.

“Yer a damn crazy bastard for doin’ this,” was all he said.

***

“Maybe,” Viggo said, the moment Sean opened the door. Sean stared at him. There were flakes of paint on his hands and he was in flip-flops. At least he was in jeans and a clean shirt, though Sean wondered how long he was planning to stay, given that it seemed he had brought no clothes at all; he only had a small duffel bag in hand. Sean lifted his eyes, cocked an eyebrow at the man.

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe I’m a crazy bastard,” he said, shrugging, stepping into the room. “But then I remembered how much I actually like you.” Viggo paused, and winced a little before he shook his head. “Besides, I’ve run headlong into artist block, and if I stare at that canvas anymore I swear I will burn down my house.”

“Won’t be the first time, would it?” Sean said, his voice dry.

Viggo drew himself up. “I,” he said, with great dignity, “have never once burned down my house.”

Standing there all dignified like that, Viggo looked bloody ridiculous. He had a spot of yellow paint right on his chin, tucked into the dimple. Sean couldn’t help but grin, reached out and grabbed Viggo by the neck, pulling him close and hugging him tight, like they were boys instead of men nearly in their fifties. He compensated for that by slapping his friend really hard on the back.

“It’s good ta see you, you crazy bastard,” Sean said, and he didn’t even try to keep the fondness out of his eyes and voice. He could feel Viggo’s lashes against his neck; could smell his hair because they were pressed so close. It was shampoo and paint and charcoal and airport; only the last had changed since New Zealand. Sean held on even harder before he forced himself to let go.

Sharp-eyed bastard that he was, Viggo immediately grabbed hold of his wrist. His fingers traced the lines crawling up Sean’s arms slowly. The scratches had scabbed over, but he still winced. Viggo tipped his head up, his finger hovering just above Sean’s cheeks. Sean turned away.

“You want to talk about it?”

Sean sighed quietly, rubbing the heels of his free hand against his eyes. “Would you let me go if I say no?”

“Yeah,” Viggo said, and did just that. “I know you didn’t do anything. If you don’t talk about it, I won’t ask.”

“I didn’t think you came over here ta watch me stew, Vig.”

“I came over here to make sure that you’re alright,” Viggo said, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“Well, you’ve made sure of that, haven’t you? Are you going to leave now?”

Viggo ignored the questions. “If this is what you call ‘alright’, I don’t want to see how you are usually, Bean.”

Sean looked at him for a long moment. “I grabbed her by the wrists,” he said finally, slow and careful. “Then I smacked her against the wall.”

Viggo stepped closer, and his hand was warm against Sean’s shoulder.

“I didn’t hold ‘er there hard or long. She got free pretty easily, and well, she always goes for manicures for her nails. Keeps them long.” He shrugged. “Then she started shouting for the police, and said that I’m throwin’ ‘er around and scarin’ the crap outta ‘er, so they took me away.”

“This is the first time?”

Sean snorted. “Nah. Not even the first time she started screaming for police.” He closed his eyes. He wouldn’t blame Viggo for asking why he stayed with Gina; sometimes he asked himself that.

But Viggo didn’t say a word; he only hugged him again, squeezing him hard enough to drive the air out of his lungs.

A couple of hours ago, Sean had gone back into the house while Gina had gone out to work, and the only thing he took was his cardboard box. That, and a change of clothes. He had thought it funny at the time, him lugging around that heavy box that seemed ready to rip itself apart at any moment.

“I didn’t bring any beer,” Viggo said, and his breath was so close to Sean’s ear that his breath nearly stuttered. “Do you think the minibar here is worth anything?”

Now… he watched as Viggo pull away from him to amble towards the mini-bar, offering comfort by just being here and by caring enough to be fly over a continent just because Sean had fucked up…

It wasn’t funny at all.

***

“People like us…” Sean said a couple of hours later, sprawled on the couch in front of the television. Footie was playing, but the Blades weren’t on, so Sean was only half-watching it. He was more concerned about the alcohol. Between Viggo and him, they had finished two bottles and were starting on the third. Since opening the second bottle, they abandoned the glasses and had started passing the bottle back and forth.

“People like us?” Viggo said, and it wasn’t fair that he didn’t sound slurred. Sean sighed.

“People like us. Actors, yeah? We ain’t got many friends. People we meet on set… after filming breaks off, we always promise to keep in touch. Never do, though.”

“Yeah?” Viggo said, and he sounded far more amused than he had any right to be. “Didn’t realise that I stopped existing in the last five minutes.”

“Yer an exception, ya wanker,” Sean slurred, batting at Viggo’s head. He felt vaguely like a twelve-year-old. Or maybe a too-old cat that was trying its best to catch a ball of yarn. He didn’t notice until now, but Viggo’s hair got a lot darker lately. It looked like old, aged wood; it’s a good colour on him. “People who keep in contact are like… like fuckin’ unicorns, or somethin’. Anyway, don’t interrupt me.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Viggo saluted with the bottle, and took a swig.

“Yeah, see, that’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout. We don’t ‘ear from Orlando anymore, not since he went all arrrh-booty on us.”

“… What?”

“His pirate movie,” Sean said, peering at Viggo as if he was thick. Was it healthy for him to be spinning like that? “The one with Johnny Depp. C’mon, his mug’s been splashed everywhere for the past few years; not even you’d miss it.”

“I was confused by the random pirate speak, Sean. And Orlando’s busier than most of us, you know that, but go on. You were talking about people like us. Actors.”

Sean kicked off his shoes, and fell over, sprawling himself over Viggo instead of the couch. Viggo’s chest was warm against his cheek, and Sean knew that he was more sheets to the wind than Viggo was right now. The bastard was probably sipping or something like that.

“It gets fuckin’ lonely, man,” Sean said, his eyes closing. It was somehow easier to speak that way. “Movin’ from place to place, meetin’ new people and then never seein’ them again. There’s so many fuckin’ people in this industry and we’re all nomads, and sometimes it gets lonely as all fuck.”

“Is that why you’re staying with Georgina?” Viggo was tensing up, and it felt ridiculously uncomfortable underneath his cheek. Sean punched him on the thigh to get him to quit it.

“Nah. Well, not all of it. She’s a grand girl, all spark and fire and she’s excitin’, and I like excitin’. She finds me excitin’, too. All my wives do. Did. Whatever. She ain’t afraid of doin’ something odd once in a while, and I’m damn fond of ‘er fer that. Fer lots of things, really. And, well—she likes it ‘ere. Didn’t like to work overseas.”

“So you always have someone to come home to.”

“Yeah. Pretty obvious, huh?” He paused. Viggo didn’t say something, so Sean continued, the words spilling out of him like he was throwing up poison.

“It should be easy, you know. Findin’ someone, I mean. I ain’t the kind who wants lots of things. Just someone who ain’t mind you when you want to watch footie; who ain’t mind you being off somewhere else most of a’ time ‘cause that’s yer job. Nice pair of tits.” He pushed himself up, and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. He took the bottle of wine from Viggo’s loose fingers, and took another long swallow. “I’ve got all that now, but she ain’t seem ta be happy wi’ me no matter what I do. Or the kinda friends I ‘ave. I told ‘er that most of me mates are Sheffield blokes—blacksmiths, welders, the like,
ya know?—and I ain’t got much friends who make movies, but it’s like all in one ear, and out the next.”

He sighed. “It ain’t like I like fightin’ and shoutin’ the ‘ouse down. I only like raising me voice when I hadta make a livin’ from it. Or if it’s footie.”

“I think you’ve had enough, Sean.” Viggo tried to reach for the bottle.

“’ell,” Sean said, taking another swig just out of spite. “’ell, we even fought ‘bout you. She said somethin’ once ‘bout you being all embarrassing with yer clothes in public and how yer all handsy with people and it ain’t proper fer a man ta behave like that. I told ‘er ta quit it, and it went inta another row.” He looked at Viggo, who seemed to have frozen entirely. “Gotta admit that yer pretty embarassin’ sometimes, but that’s just ‘cause yer a crazy bastard.”

Sean closed his eyes, tilting his head back.

“Fuckin’ ‘ell, Vig,” he said, and his voice was quieter now. Viggo took the wine from him easily, and Sean sat up properly. He swiped his hand across his face. “I’m just damn lucky Mel and Abby didn’t believe any bit o’ it. Can you imagine if they tried ta take me girls away? Won’t know what I’d do. I just…” He took another breath. “Mel told me that she ain’t believe a bit of it, ‘cause I’ve lived wi’ her fer years and I ain’t ever raised my damn voice at ‘er. Not even once, not even when we were rowing, and she knows that. James—you know, James Daly, ‘er boyfriend?—told me if Abby’s being unreasonable he’d talk ta ‘er fer me, if I needed it. They’re decent. More decent than I fuckin’ deserve, I tell you.”

A pause. “Abby said,” he burbled a quiet laugh, and swiped his hand across his lips. He put on his best public school accent. “‘I told you not to marry that woman, Sean. A bartender isn’t at all a good role model for Evie to follow.’ And when I told ‘er that Gina’s an actress, Abby goes all snooty and says that if Gina’s an actress that her hairdresser is also one.”

Sean stopped there. He wasn’t that drunk to continue, because he really didn’t want to tell Viggo what Debra told him, sweet and quiet and soft like she always was: You always tried so hard to be happy, Sean, but you just going all the wrong ways about it. Don’t follow what you think will make you happy. Just go for what does.

“Hey,” Viggo said, and Sean could feel his hand on his own neck. “Hey, come here.” He let himself be tugged closer, and buried his face into Viggo’s shoulder. Viggo started humming a nonsensical, tuneless little song, rocking back and forth on the couch, stroking his hair slowly. His fingers were warm and gentle.

He couldn’t tell Viggo, because… being here, just being here, getting ridiculously drunk and emotional and getting Viggo’s jacket all wet and making fun of his ex-wife and hiding away from his wife, was the happiest he had been in weeks.

“It’s alright,” Viggo crooned softly. Sean recognised the tone; he used it himself whenever he wanted to soothe his girls when they had nightmares or were afraid. Oddly enough, he didn’t feel annoyed. It felt good, like this.

“Should I start singing?”

“If I want me eardrums burst, I’d get it done professionally,” Sean retorted, but there was no heat in his voice. Viggo didn’t take offence either. He only continued humming softly, placing a gentle kiss on Sean’s hair.

Just here. Just being here with Viggo. It made him happy.

“If you say so,’ Viggo said, and Sean couldn’t help leaning into his hand.

It was the wine, he told himself. It was only the wine.

His agent had called him during the beginning of the year. It was a perfunctory call because he was obliged to ask, but Sean was pretty much expected to turn down this particular offer. The man was in Saxony-Anhalt, Somewhere, Not Really Germany, at the time, and he couldn’t possibly just run down to London again in order to present an award. He wasn’t even going to win it, but only present it. To Viggo Mortensen, didn’t he mention that?

It took Sean a few breaths to agree to it. The first one had gotten stuck in his throat, and with the second his hand was trembling. It was pathetic, it really was, but he hadn’t seen Viggo in what seemed like years. That didn’t matter. Shouldn’t matter. He was married now, and she didn’t deserve this. Even though he had broken his vows three times now, he still took them seriously. He had to; there was no reason otherwise to take them again.

But Sean couldn’t help it. Even now, he looked around him at the desolate landscape, the castles, the skies, and all he wanted was for Viggo to be here. He would be able to see the poetry in the buildings and in the dull brilliance of the light far better than Sean would ever be able to Sean tried to capture the castles and the trees with scratches of charcoal and paper, but his lines were crooked and uneven, because he had abandoned his art materials for years. Instead he looked into the box that he had brought here, to the middle of nowhere, flipping through pictures with colour, pictures with shades of grey and black and white, and he wondered what kind of pictures Viggo would take. He wondered what cameras he would’ve brought, here; he wondered when that had started mattering to him.

(Should he blame his agent? Should he blame Empire? He hadn’t thought about Viggo for a month now, at least. That was an improvement. It had to be.

He hadn’t thought of Georgina since he had arrived in Germany, but that was something he didn’t even want to start considering.)

The next day, Sean politely asked the boy who was assigned to be his assistant to find him a Polaroid camera, with plenty of film. He didn’t care about how good the quality was; that wasn’t the point. The camera he got was crap quality, but it was black and white for some reason, and that was perfect. He took pictures of the castle; of the skies at sunset; at the trees with raindrops hovering at their tips, oily black against the grey skies after a thunderstorm. Behind each photograph, Sean started writing. Little bits and pieces; words that he could have never said to Viggo because his mouth ran dry and his head emptied itself whenever he laid eyes on that man.

Here, standing in a place where he knew Viggo would love and appreciate, the words came to him. Slow and stuttering they came; he wrote them all down each day after he cast Ulric’s skin off and revealed his own.

But Sean didn’t know where Viggo lived, nowadays. Would he still be in Idaho? Was he at location? There was no telling where he might be now. Hell, he might even be in Iceland, wandering around, taking photographs. He told himself that this was the only reason why he didn’t send any of the photographs.

Maybe he would show Viggo them instead, when he flew in for the Empire Awards. Sean could only hope that he wouldn’t laugh.

***

Viggo didn’t much like prizes, or award ceremonies. You couldn’t qualify art, he once said; art couldn’t be judged and given prizes as it they were commodities. Art was subjective; despite all of Kant’s pontificating and justifications, it was impossible to rationalise the artistic impulse or aesthetic judgment. There were so many different possibilities and tastes and Viggo had long given up on pandering to everyone, or even to specific people. That wasn’t what he made art for. It wasn’t what art should be made for.

But he was grateful, nonetheless—

“What? Can you say that again?”

“I said that Empire just told me Sean Bean will be presenting the award to you .You know Sean Bean, right? Your buddy on Lord of the Rings?”

“Yeah.” He took a breath. Another one, slowly, through his teeth. “Yeah, I know Sean.”

“Alright, I’ll email you the schedule when I get it. Please check your email. And Viggo?”

“…mm?” He stopped listening. His agent was telling him something about not wearing anything too embarrassing—just the same thing he said every single time Viggo had a public appearance to make; he had started to ignore the man by now, to tune him out. When he stopped talking, Viggo made another small noise and hung up the phone.

There was a grand piano on his Idaho ranch now, a beauty made out of hardwood painted black as night. He stroked his fingers against the length of it, moving downwards, dancing across the ivory-and-black keys. It was a recent buy; bought for the very simple reason that he had been haunted for years now by a simple imagery and a simpler song. The sight danced at the back of his eyes—Sean’s throat, his head dropped backwards and his shoulders loose, fingers pressing against the white keys. His fingers splayed out starkly, his entire body bold splashes of colour on the black-and-white canvas of the piano. There was a cigarette lingering on his lips, its smoke softening the lines of Sean’s face.

When Viggo heard him play, they were in a bed-and-breakfast hotel halfway down to the South island. The grand piano there was an old and beat-up, with its two of its three pedals were broken. Even at on its best day it couldn’t be considered a beauty at all. Despite all that, Sean had touched it with such reverence that Viggo’s eyes were caught. He stood there played an irreverent melody, something that would come out of Saturday morning cartoons or nursery rhymes, and he had shot Viggo a guilty, childlike grin before dropping onto the bench and changing the melody Grieg’s The Hall of the Mountain King.

“It ain’t right,” Sean told him later, the two of them sitting on the porch, smoking and looking out into the magnificent New Zealand sunset. The night was cold but Sean’s body was warm beside his, and Viggo could deal with that. “Playin’ Bach or Mozart or Beethoven in a place like this, I mean. Those make me think of England, Europe; maybe even big ballrooms and people in stuffy wigs and coats.” He shrugged. “Place like this, it’s either wild or sweet, there’s no in-between.”

“What was the first one?”

“Gossec. He ain’t much famous nowadays, but that’s the first piece I’ve ever learned, his Gavotte. ‘Course, the real one’s ain’t nothin’ like what I just played you. I’ve forgotten most of it, so it was just me fuckin’ ‘round.” He rocked back onto his heels, standing up and tossing his cigarette to the ground, grinding it underneath his heel.

Viggo looked up at him for a long moment, watching the way the sunlight played on Sean’s hair. There were so many shades of gold. One of them stuck to his mind; years later, he would mix paints for that colour, and name it gold-burnt-by-candlelight.

“I’m going ta bed,” Sean said, turning around. He stopped right before opening the door, turning back and giving Viggo a small, half-shy smile. “And if you ain’t tired of it by tomorrow, I’ll play you some more Grieg.”

The next morning, Sean played him Morning Mood before tea and mate. Viggo went back to sleep against the piano bench, and only woke up when Sean wafted mate underneath his nose.

It was impossible to capture music in painting; impossible to try to recapture long-lost memories and half-faded sensations. Viggo didn’t try. Instead he bought a grand piano, found himself a teacher to teach him the sounds, and composed his spoken words according to it. There had been so many pieces that he had created; CDs filled with this piano’s music, listened to people who were (hopefully) all over the world.

But they were all failures in his eyes. Interesting failures, maybe. Failures that could stand on their own rights; failures that were successes in other ways, but failures nonetheless when it came to his goal. There was nothing in anything he could compose that could capture the simplicity of Sean at the piano, his fingers dancing across the keys, and smoke curling around his cheeks. Nothing that could capture that one jaunty little tune he had played with his fingers free and careless across bone-white keys, his lips pulled back into a small smile.

He would try again. After he saw Sean, he would try again. Maybe Sean would play for him again. Or perhaps he would try another experiment: to see if the piano could capture the cadence and liveliness of Sean’s voice.

Standing here, Viggo knew even now that he would fail, but he was optimistic enough to try anyway.

They really shouldn’t have drank that much. No matter how good the whiskey was, or how freely it flowed… they really shouldn’t have.

Viggo was out of breath with laughter, his hand alcohol-cold against Sean’s neck. It was a struggle to not lean in closer; to not tuck his face into Sean’s shoulder and breathe in his scent. They had finally stumbled out of the event, tucking themselves in a corner of the building with cigarettes in their hand and drops of rain sinking into their suit jackets. The event was over, the press had dispersed.

They were alone. As alone as anyone could be, in the midst of London. Viggo had no idea where Sean’s wife had gone, and he didn’t want to ask. He had Sean all to himself, his skin against his.

Viggo didn’t remember what he said during the prize presentation. He couldn’t think. Not with Sean so near; not with his dry lips leaving a brand on his cheek. It felt hot even right now, and Viggo gasped a breath as Sean laughed against his jaw, hiccupping slightly. His hair smelled of tobacco. Viggo took the chance; he reached out, cupped Sean’s jaw with his hand, and buried his nose into Sean’s hair. He could smell Sean’s cologne even through the heavy smell of alcohol stuck onto their skin; his next inhale was slow, deep and shuddering. He felt as if he had been marked on the inside, Sean’s scent like ink settling deep into his lungs, writing his name on the insides of his ribs.

“Vig,” Sean murmured. Viggo’s heart skipped a moment, but he didn’t pull away.

“Mm?”

“Don’t think I can drive ‘ome tonight,” he said, and Viggo could feel his teeth, sharp against the skin of his throat. There was a short gust of breath, and Viggo felt Sean’s ribs trembling gently against his fingers. When did his hand move to splay out against Sean’s back? “Don’t want ta go back anyway.”

Viggo nodded. He understood; the spectre of Georgina hung over the both of them. “Come back to my hotel room, then,” He said, and he laughed quietly. That wasn’t the way he wanted to invite Sean back to his house—or wherever he was living, given their lifestyles.

“Yeah? You got a couch?”

“Yeah.”

“Won’t want ta sleep in yer bed,” the words were almost completely slurred, the consonants melding into one another. Sheffield haunting the streets of London in the shape of Sean Bean’s drunken breath. “Can’t kick you out of it. Would be a terrible guest.”

Viggo sighed, his breath moving against Sean’s hair. His thumb circled against the knob of his spine, “I’ve got a couch. It’s a suite.”

“Mm.” They finally pulled apart. Viggo’s hand dropped to his side, and he tried his best to not have it curl into a fist. Sean’s eyes were red-rimmed, and he rubbed the back of his hand against his lips. “Bit funny. I’m the one who lives ‘round ‘ere, and yer the one offerin’ me yer bed.”

“You can offer yours to me tomorrow,” he offered, and they were stumbling towards the chauffeured car that Empire had offered him.

“I’d show you me garden,” Sean said, and he practically fell into the car when the chauffeur held the door open. His hand had somehow closed around Viggo’s wrist along the way. Viggo didn’t shake it off. Instead, he dropped into the car, leaning against the door as it was slammed closed.

Sean moved suddenly, throwing his hand out until it smacked against the glass window a bare inch away from Viggo’s face. Viggo blinked. Sean was grinning, a little lopsided, and definitely very drunk.

“Yer ain’t ever been ta me place,” Sean pointed out, and Viggo nodded for the lack of anything else to do. “I’ve got lots to show you.”

Viggo reminded himself to breathe.

“Come up to Idaho with me,” he said when he had enough air in his lungs to, his hand slipping into Sean’s hair. It was thick and heavy, strands of soft gold sliding against the callused knuckles of his hand. There wasn’t a single strand of grey. Viggo tried to memorise the various shades, because he didn’t know when he would let himself so close again. “I’ve horses and fields and…” he couldn’t think properly, blinded by gold, “plenty of things.”

“Yeah,” Sean said, turning his head and practically leaning into Viggo’s hand. His body was far too tense for someone as drunk as he smelled. Viggo’s breath caught. Slowly, he loosened his hand, letting it drop to Sean’s shoulder and clasped it.

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

Viggo didn’t remember stumbling back into the hotel; didn’t remember Sean collapsing onto the couch and him onto the bed. He only remembered waking up to an empty room, with a glass of water beside the nightstand and two Tylenol pills, and a small note folded underneath.

Viggo picked up the note, slugging back the water and swallowing the pills. He placed the glass down, and took a single breath.

Vig,

Forgot I was supposed to fly back to Germany this afternoon. Sorry. Looks like I’ll have to show you my garden some other day.

Sean



Slowly, he folded the note back into its exact creases. His mind was already shifting; trying to decide where this note would go in that box he kept.

Some other day.

Viggo had waited this long; he could wait even longer. He could learn to wait even longer.

He had to. He had to.

“You know,” Viggo started once Sean picked up the phone. “I’ve met you in London for far too many times to count by now, and I still haven’t seen your house.”

Sean squinted at his phone. He wondered if he had stepped into some kind of alternate world where he was in the middle of a conversation with Viggo, and his alternate-self had landed in his world, where his life was perfectly normal and incredibly depressing and didn’t involve any sudden, mid-conversational phone calls from Viggo.

Probably not. He sighed, and placed the phone back to his ear.

“Sean. Your house. I want to see it.”

“Vig, normal people start phone calls with ‘hello’.”

“You have caller ID, right? It doesn’t make sense for me to introduce myself.”

Sean sighed. He wiped his hands on his pants; it was a good thing he wasn’t doing anything embarrassing. “What are you doing in London this time, Viggo?”

“I ran screaming away from San Francisco all the way across the Atlantic, and I landed in Heathrow.”

“…Might be a stupid question, Vig, but what were you doing in San Francisco?”

“Filming On the Road. The one adapted from Jack Kerouac’s novel. The cast is just a whole bunch of young actors and I felt like a fossil the whole time.”

“You are a fossil,” he shot back automatically. At the back of his mind, he wondered what it was with Viggo and his obsession with roads. Down the line, in the background, there was the sound of a car honking. “Vig, are you driving?”

“I’m wearing a handset.” There was a pause. “Is London’s traffic usually this complete shit, or does the city hate me?”

“It’s Christmas Eve. In London. Of course it’s complete shit. How much time are you taking per inch?”

“Half an hour or so.” There was another pause. “I really should have walked from the airport. I landed ages ago.”

“… Vig, Belsize is twenty miles from ‘eathrow, and over several ‘ighways. You wouldn’t ‘ave made it.”

“I’ve hiked longer distances.”

“You’ve gotten lost within three miles of a 7/11. And a quarter mile of yer own ‘ouse.”

“I navigated Iceland just fine!” Viggo declared, sounding completely indignant. Sean didn’t believe a single whit of it; the man was a damn fine actor.

“If you walk left long enough in a forest, you’ll eventually find your way out. Or off a cliff,” Sean intoned.

“Fuck you, Bean,” Viggo said, sounding far too affectionate for his words. Sean heard a door slam. “Anyway, is your house a big honking monstrosity with a Range Rover in front?”

“Bloody hell,” Sean swore. He practically sprinted to his bedroom door, pulling it close and locking it. Then he grabbed his house keys and shoved them into his jeans pocket before he strode to his front door. “Can’t a guy get a warning before you drop in on him?”

He twisted the lock open. Viggo was standing outside, his manic grin visible even through the fine dusting of London-grey snow on his hair. His car was a beat-up Hyundai, and it would be anonymous if not for the fact that it was painted neon green. The colour looked vaguely like some of the highlighter pens that Evie owned. Sean blinked at it. What the hell?

“You have white stuff on your hands,” Viggo said. Then: “Are you going to let me in?”

Sean threw open the door. “… What would you ‘ave done if I wasn’t in?”

“Oh, I knew you would be,” Viggo said. He grinned as he dropped his small suitcase—seemed like the guy still packed very light—onto the hallway floor. “I called Mel and your ma and asked.”

“Wot. How—”

“Got it from your agent, and he gave it to me because you’re moping around the house,” Viggo continued, and his grin was reached shark-levels. Sean blinked at him. “Besides, Henry decides to go gallivanting on a road trip with his college mates and his girlfriend, and his dad isn’t cool enough to follow anymore.”

Sean stared at him. He tried to find the link between the two sentences, and he couldn’t. Mentally, he shrugged. Might as well just go with it.

“I told him that it’s my mission to cheer you up. And you owe me.”

“I do? Since when?” Sean cocked an eyebrow.

“You promised to show me your house and garden the last time I was in London for the Empire Awards, and you never did.”

“Vig,” Sean said, slowly and deliberately, as if speaking to a small child or a man who just went completely starkers in front of his very eyes. He clapped him on the shoulder, spreading white all over Viggo’s pretty decent shirt. Well, the man probably had at least one other. Sean had hope. “We’re in the dead of winter. The garden is covered with snow. Everything is dead.”

“Oh. Damn.” There was a pause. Viggo licked his own finger, and stroked it down the back of Sean’s hand. He put it into his mouth. Sean’s breath caught, just a little.

“Icing sugar?”

“Yeah,” Sean said, and he ducked his head down. He would have rubbed the back of his neck if his hands were clean. “I’m makin’ cupcakes and cookies. Stuff fer the girls; I’m seeing them tomorrow. All three of ‘em together. Evie’s spendin’ Christmas with her sisters ‘cause Abby and Mel bonded over not liking Gina very much and laughing over me idiocy.” His smile was a little too wide and entirely too sheepish, and he shrugged a little.

Viggo was staring at him, the tip of his finger between his lips. He drew it out with a soft pop. “I didn’t know that you bake.”

“Just messin’ ‘round, really,” Sean said, and he headed back to the kitchen. “Gina moved out in August, and I ‘ad some extra time since my next film is shooting ‘round ‘ere. I get ta come ‘ome every night. Then Evie starts talkin’ ta me about her baking classes, and I thought why not. So I got Lorna to print out a couple of recipes ta start with.” He paused, and laughed to himself. “Evie said it ain’t fair that I’m better at it than she is.”

“Well,” Viggo said, poking him on the wrist. “You have big hands. All the better to knead with.”

***

A couple of hours later, Viggo munched on gingerbread cookies while half-leaning, half-sitting on Sean’s dining table. He was worried enough about Sean ever since he read the papers about the separation and the divorce, until the only time he wasn’t thinking about Sean was when he had sunk deeply into the mind of Old Bull Lee. Even then, it wasn’t exactly that long. Lee had no problems thinking about attractive naked men. He wrote a whole book about them.

Sean was in the kitchen now, cleaning up. The icing had been made, the cupcakes iced and in the fridge; now all they were waiting for was for the cookies to cool. Viggo had teased him that they could make anatomically correct gingerbread men (and women), and he had gotten smacked at the back of his head and reminded that the cookies were for Evie.

There was something here that Viggo knew he really should think about. That he should have been thinking about since July 2008, when he realised that the colour that had been haunting him was the same colour as Sean’s hair in the bright sunlight. That he should be thinking about it for two years, especially after the sheer irrational rage he felt when Sean went back to Georgina. He still owned that shirt, with its shoulder soaked through with Sean’s tears. He had never washed it. Instead, it was folded neatly inside the box.

He really should be thinking about that box at all. Or the fact that when he was at a loose end he didn’t decide to work on his art, but came to Sean instead.

But at some point in time he realised that there wasn’t really a point to thinking about it. He knew what it all meant a long time ago. Maybe even in New Zealand during principle shooting, on the trip they took to the South island, with just the two of them. He remembered standing at a hill when the sun was about to set, and the rays of the sun—yellow and bright still, but already starting to be tinged with orange—caught themselves in Sean’s hair. It was already written in Sean’s smile then. Viggo knew what it all meant.

But he was a fool and a coward both, and he had never raised a single hand; never spoken a single word. He had only stood back and watched as Sean drifted away. He watched as he got married and divorced. He stood by with his hands in his pockets, and never did reach out.

Exene had always said that he was spectacularly slow. He supposed she was right; after all, she was the one who proposed.

***

“Hey, Vig.”

Viggo was sitting on the couch, staring into space. At Sean’s voice, he shook his head as if he was forcibly yanking himself out of his own thoughts, then blinked and cocked his head to the side.

“Yeah?”

Sean was leaning against the kitchen doorframe, arms crossed. “Come along with me ta meet the girls, Mel, and Abby tomorrow. Maybe me parents too. Don’t know if they’ve decided ta take tonight’s train. They’d call me if they are.”

Viggo blinked. “Are you sure about that?”

Sean shrugged. “I just called me girls. They know you, even though their memories might be fuzzy after so many years, so it ain’t like you’ll be a stranger. They said they’d be fine wi’ it.” There was a moment when he looked uncomfortable, but it was gone so soon that Viggo wondered if he imagined it. “‘sides, what else would you do fer tomorrow?”

“Well,” Viggo said, and he was surprised at how blank his mind went, suddenly. He really hadn’t planned for anything beyond arriving at Sean’s house and seeing him. “Call Henry, I guess. Go to a hotel.”

“Shite, man, I ain’t that bad of a host,” Sean exclaimed. “Yer staying right ‘ere.”

“But—”

“If you want ta earn yer keep or something’ silly like that, Vig, get yer ass here and ice the cookies wi’ me.”

Viggo snorted. “But you won’t let me make them anatomically correct.”

Sean looked at him. “You can give half o’ ‘em dresses and give the rest of ‘em trousers. ‘ell, you can even colour them.”

Viggo punched the air, letting out a loud whoop as he dashed into the kitchen. Sean watched him, and he couldn’t help but laugh, wondering what exactly he had just agreed to.

A couple of hours later, Sean knew exactly what he had, and realised that he needed to do some intervention. He sighed, placing his hands flat on the table. “Vig.”

“Mm?” Viggo sounded distracted, frowning as he wielded a spoon with great dexterity. There was a small splotch of pink icing on his nose. Sean tried valiantly not to giggle like a loon. He also ignored the sudden, strong urge to lick it off.

“Mind explanin’ why the trousers are all pink and the dresses blue?”

Viggo tutted, shaking his head. He didn’t look away from dressing a gingerbread man in a pair of pink trousers. “I didn’t think you’re the type to perpetuate gender norms, Bean. Shame on you.”

“Yer goin’ ta confuse people,” Sean said, perfectly reasonable.

“You can tell them that the pink trousers are girls, and the blue dresses are boys.”

Sean couldn’t help it. He threw his head back and laughed. “Yer daft!”

“Yeah?” Viggo lifted an eyebrow, almost as if he was going to start waggling it. He licked at a thumb. “You love me that way.”

There was a pause.

“I must be an idiot to,” Sean said, turning away and shoving his hands into his pockets. Too late, he realised that his fingers were still covered in icing sugar. He pulled them back out, grimacing. Then he realised that his clothes and skin were almost entirely covered by sugar, flour, and food colouring.

“Go change. Or shower. Either,” Viggo said, and he gave Sean an odd, lopsided little grin. “We’re almost done here anyway, and I can finish them up.”

Sean nodded, starting to head out of the kitchens. He hesitated, “You sure you don’t need help?”

Viggo waved a hand absentmindedly. Sean left the room, started to grumble about dirty hands. He sounded distracted.

Left alone in the kitchen, Viggo sighed to himself. They- he had always chosen to take a single step back when he could have taken one forward, hadn’t he?

He would try again. Christmas wasn’t here yet; even if it was, there would still be Boxing Day, and New Year’s. If he missed those, there would always be next year.

Viggo had learned to wait. He really had.

(If he told himself that over enough time, the words would solidify itself on his tongue, and he could believe in them.)

To be perfectly honest, Sean had completely lost track of where the hell he was a few plane trips back. It wasn’t as if it was particularly important, to be honest—all that changed were the interviewers, and sometimes the language. The hotel rooms all looked the same and one seemed just as claustrophobic as the others. Or it might be because most of the cast were holed up together.

Sean knew that he could have asked for a room of his own instead of sharing with others; he was, after all, the biggest name in the credits. Admitting that wasn’t being arrogant—it was being honest, especially since he had the most promotion to do despite how much he hated promotion, for the very simple reason that his face and name was the most well-known. Not even Nikolaj was as well-known, which was odd because he was far more conventionally ‘pretty’ and he was in Bent and Kingdom of Heaven and Black Hawk Down and popular stuff that won awards like that.

Sean just didn’t want to stay in a room of his own. It would be damn lonely, and he couldn’t screw around with the others as easily. Case in point: right now.

“Lannister bastard,” he yelled, squinting at the computer screen. He had a little phrase book in his hand. “Come over here!”

Nikolaj poked his head out of his room. It was mid-afternoon, and most of them have just returned from an interview. Some of them, like Kit, Mark and Jason, were still out there doing the circuit. No one else had anything left for the day except for him, which was why Sean was still dressed in a suit while Nikolaj was left with only a shirt and boxers.

The Lannister bastard clomped over, dropping down onto the couch beside Sean. “What the fuck do you want, Stark moron?” he asked pleasantly.

Sean pointed accusingly at the screen. “How the ‘ell do you book tickets online?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Peter poking his head out of his room. When the man realised that he wasn’t the Lannister bastard being called for, he ambled out of the suite. Presumably to call on the third Lannister bastard to gawk at the one Stark who got roped into rooming with all of them.

“Let me see,” Nikolaj commandeered the laptop that Sean had borrowed from one of the PAs that were scurrying around. “Why don’t you get your agent to do things like that?”

“Wanted ta do it meself,” Sean shrugged, shoving his thumbs into his pockets. He told himself that he wasn’t embarrassed. “But I just ain’t good with computers.”

Nikolaj gave him a look, like Jaime found Ned to be an utterly fascinating creature and what was a man like that doing in King’s Landing? It was an expression first born when he thought about Sean and Hollywood. But he turned back to the screen quickly enough, looking through the website. He clicked through it a few times, frowning.

“That’s kind of obvious. But Sean, look, I really don’t think you can book here,” he said, and clicked around a few more times.

“Site’s first page tol’ me I could,” Sean said, peering at the screen. He hated computers. “I’m lookin’ fer Purgatorio, staged in the Las Naves del Español.” The Spanish words tripped off his tongue carefully.

There was a longer pause, broken only by the clicking of the mouse.

“Sean,” Nikolaj eventually said, pulling back from the screen. He turned around, and his look of sheepish regret looked odd on a face that Sean had seen more often as Jaime Lannister than as Nikolaj himself. “Look- I did find that one.”

“… Yeah?”

“It opens in November, Sean. The opening day hasn’t even been decided on yet.”

“… November, huh?”

“Yeah, it’s going to run from November to December, and it’ll end a little before Christmas, I guess.” He paused for a moment. “You’ll probably have better luck looking up this website again in October or so.”

He reached over and punched Sean on the shoulder, “Why do you want to see it anyway? It looks like of boring, just two people talking in a language I’m pretty sure you don’t even know.”

Sean gave him a wry grin. He got up and moved towards his room. From the doorway, he waved a thick Spanish phrasebook. “I’m learnin’ it,” he told Nikolaj solemnly, then broke the illusion by grinning.

Nikolaj snorted and didn’t ask. He closed the window before pushing down the lid of the laptop, and then turned around to look Sean up and down through slightly-narrowed eyes. “You look better,” he pronounced sagely, nodding.

“Yeah?” Sean blinked.

“Yeah,” came the very decisive reply. “Less tired,” he ticked off on a finger. “Less old. Smiles more.” Nikolaj smiled a lecher’s grin. “Eminently more fuckable.”

Sean blinked again.

“What the hell did I come back to,” Peter intoned at the door. Nikolaj turned around and waved cheerily. “I went away for five minutes and I come back to my incestuous brother hitting on a man.”

Lena, the last bastard Lannister previously mentioned, peeled away from the doorway. She walked over to the couch and leaned against the back of it, reaching out to put her hands on his shoulders. “Nikolaj,” she said, perfectly seriously. Nikolaj tilted his head back, turned his most charming upside-down grin at her. “I told you: if you’re going to hit on Sean, you have to wait for me. Twins share everything. Including delicious men.”

“I,” Sean said slowly, enunciating every word in a perfect Received Pronunciation accent, “hate Lannisters.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Emilia chirped from the doorway, finally breaking her silence. “I find them pretty entertaining.”

“You would find us entertaining, my dear,” Peter said, flourishing a little bow towards her. “We didn’t end up chopping off your head.”

“Oh, burn,” Lena said.

Sean drew himself up as if to speak, but Nikolaj was shaking his head, grinning widely.

“You are all ridiculous,” he said. “I was only telling Sean that he looks better now. And it’s weird, because people tend to look like shit during promotion because it is bloody promotions and we spend most of our time on planes. Everyone tends to look better during actual filming because that’s the fun part of the job, and this is the tedious shit.” He paused. “Except for our radiant Emilia, of course, who always looks stunning.”

Emilia blushed.

Lena smacked him across the head. “Being a cradle robber is uncouth, Jaime,” she said.

“And how did I manage to forget my beautiful sister?” Nikolaj leaned in, smacking a kiss against her cheek. “But we were talking about Sean.”

They all turned to him.

“No, carry on,” Sean said, obviously amused. “I ain’t here at all.”

“For someone who isn’t there, you take up a lot of space,” Peter pointed out.

There was a pause, and Sean’s smile faded. He sighed a little, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s probably a curse on fantasy series or somethin’, fer me. While we were filmin’, me wife was makin’ noises ‘bout a divorce through the phone, and she filed the papers the moment I went back ta England. Wasn’t a pleasant thin’ ta be lingerin’ at the back o’ me mind throughout the shoot.”

Silence. No one seemed to know what to say for a moment. Out of the four of them, Lena, Nikolaj and Peter were all sickeningly happily married, and they knew better than to open their mouths to pretend to know what Sean had gone through; Emilia had no real idea what it meant to be married, and so had even less authority to speak. Besides, it seemed almost sacrilegious to speak without thinking about this, especially since Sean always seemed to have an aversion to talking about himself. They were with him for months, first in Middle of Nowhere, Ireland, then in Middle of Nowhere, Malta, and he had never once said a word about himself.

He was their biggest star and their best listener both, and Nikolaj could bet his entire salary that Sean knew and understood all of them far more than what the rest knew about him put together.

Lena and Emilia, of course, would know more. They even know what happened with his divorce—it would be hard not to get news about Sean Bean when you lived in London. But that was an entirely different case when compared to having it straight from the horse’s mouth.

Emilia took the first step, finally moving away from the doorway. She walked over to Sean and threw her arms around him, hugging him tight.

“Thank you, lass,” Sean said, hugging her back. He patted her on the head a little, and Emilia gave him a small, sweet smile. She couldn’t help it, really. Sometimes she was jealous of Sophie, Maisie, Kit, Richard, Isaac and even tiny little Art—they got to have so many scenes with Richard Sharpe, and she didn’t have any. At least she got to talk to him more during promotional tours.

“You’re alright now?” Nikolaj asked softly.

“Yeah,” Sean smiled a little, shrugging one shoulder. Emilia pulled back, a little reluctantly. “An old friend of mine came over during Christmas, and he stayed fer a bit. Got me ‘ead out of me ass, and stopped me from mopin’ ‘round.”

His smile widened even further, like there was sweetness to that memory that even the sharp bitterness of a divorce could not touch.

“Good,” Lena said, and that was that.

***

18 December 2011


Stranger in a strange land. or so the quote goes.

Sean didn’t visit other countries unless it was for work. He preferred to stay in London when he had spare time, because that’s where almost everything he cared about was. But he supposed he could make an exception for this, although there was a part of him that felt absolutely foolish about this.

But he was in Madrid already, and he had bought tickets for Purgatorio. Lorna had helped him with it back in London, and she had that odd smug little smile on her face. Maybe it was because he bought three tickets, all on different days, with each one of them situated somewhere in the middle rows. He could sit in the front row, of course, but… he just didn’t want to. He didn’t want Viggo to be able to see him. Sean knew how much a distraction having a familiar face in the audience could be, especially when one wasn’t particularly expecting it. He experienced it himself when Bernard Cornwall came down for Macbeth.

Honestly, he was just making excuses. He had watched Viggo for two nights now, and he knew that if he even breathed near the backstage, he would be taken in to see Viggo. Even here, Lord of the Rings was famous. Or he could have even just called Viggo up and told him that he was here and asked for a backstage pass. That would be the most considerate option.

Instead he lingered behind, hiding under a hat amongst the groups of fans that greeted Viggo and his co-star as they came out of the stage. He watched, half-smiling, as Viggo smiled, signed autographs and spoke in flawless Spanish to his fans. He watched as Viggo got into a battered car and drove off every single day. He watched all of it, and he did nothing.

Today was the last day- the last day for the show. There wouldn’t be any other legitimate reasons to visit Viggo if he had missed it, and Sean had no idea (bullshit, said a small voice inside his head) why he was so nervous. He had no idea why he didn’t just go up to Viggo the first day and greeted him. They didn’t part on bad terms, though Sean hadn’t seen him since last December. They had both been busy, and when they were both in the same city at the same time it always ended up that their schedules were so packed that they couldn’t even find a single night to have dinner with each other.

It was the life of an actor, and Sean had long gotten used to it. It was something that had destroyed at least two of his marriages (Gina was a whole other kettle of fish). But he couldn’t help the bitter taste of regret, and his hands lingered on Viggo’s heart-pieces for longer than ever. It had become, in the absence of London and Sheffield and his garden, a symbol of home.

He was staying in another anonymous hotel room. It was one with a balcony, and he stepped outside. The Madrid wind whipped through his hair, cold and sharp against the thin skin of his eyelids and his eyelashes. It was winter, and the breeze whipped away his voice as he spoke the words, spreading each consonant and vowel throughout the city.

I have recordings of our voices
In rooms now collapsed.

A bell tower rang out the time, and Sean knew he had another three hours. He placed Recent Forgeries on the edge of the banister and looked outwards to the skies streaked with reds and pinks and oranges, and wondered why his heart seemed so full of hope.

Three hours more. Sean, too, had learned patience, but he had never learned as quickly as Viggo. Spanish was unwieldy on his tongue, and impatience still came far easier.

***

The standing ovations had stopped surprising Sean by now, and he only smiled, getting to his feet along with the rest and clapping enthusiastically. The sounds of his hands were drowned in the cacophonies of the rest, and he berated himself for the twinge of regret.

He headed for the backstage, and his feet walked him there. He knew the way well by now, after two days of memorising the steps without taking them. This time, he took them, shoving his hands into the pockets of his black slacks as he smiled at the security guard.

“Estoy aquí para ver Viggo,” he said haltingly, his accent atrocious. “Soy un amigo.”

The guard blinked at him, uncomprehending. Was his Spanish that bad? Sean dragged a hand through his hair.

“I’m here to see Viggo,” he said, curbing his Northern drawl as much as possible, his consonants clipped and nervous. “I’m a friend of his. Sean Bean.”

He shouldn’t have even tried the phrase book, because the guard’s eyes widened, then narrowed at him, as if trying to ascertain his identity with just a look.

After a moment, he said, in English as halting and thick, nearly as incomprehensible as Sean’s Spanish, “I am a great fan of your work. Alec- is my… favourite.”

Sean smiled, and he signed an autograph for a guard before he was let in and shown the way to Viggo’s dressing room. His hands were sweaty, and he wiped them on his slacks, leaving streaks of shadows against the black cotton. He dragged another hand through his hair, and scolded himself for being nervous.

He opened the door, “Hey, Vig—”

Viggo was sitting on his makeup table, his doctor’s coat shed and folded over at the couch tucked into a corner of the wall, and he wore only the black shirt and pants of his costume. His thighs were spread outwards, and his hand was buried in a woman’s hair. His other hand was curled around her jaw, pulling her closer. Their lips were sealed together, Viggo’s eyes closed as if in rapture.

Sean’s hand slowly slipped from the doorknob. His breath slammed into his lungs like an attack, and shuddered out of him like death itself. The woman—he recognised the woman. She played Viggo’s lover in Appaloosa, didn’t she? A girl named Katie, and she was beautiful. She was beautiful now, wrapped up in Viggo’s arms, her hands stark-pale against Viggo’s shoulder as she smoothed it downwards. She had calluses on the tips of her fingers; he could hear it from the rough rasp of the cotton.

What was her name? Adriana? Ariadna?

Nothing shattered inside him. Sean kept his eyes open and his lips sealed shut. But he could not control his heart, and he could not control his breath. He controlled his eyes instead, and kept them wide open. He controlled his hand and forced it to rise and close around the doorknob. They obviously hadn’t taken any note of him. He took a step back, and the sound of his foot against the ground was like a crack of thunder.

He closed the door.

***

Viggo turned his head at the click of the door closing, breaking the kiss. There was a mere shadow, at the edge of his eyes; a glimpse of gold and green. Did he imagine it?

“He is here,” Ariadna whispered into his ear, her fingers tracing against the shell of the other one. She smiled crookedly at him, and kissed him gently on the side of his lips. “That man from your suitcase.”

Sean.

Viggo clambered down from the desk, his eyes wide and lips parted, half-horrified. He looked at Ariadna for a moment more, his body tense and frozen, and the knock on the door was a benediction and a curse all at the same time. He looked at Ariadna for a moment, his breath in his throat, and she only nodded towards the door.

He took a deep breath. It was only a door. His hand splayed against the wood, his hand curled around the doorknob. Was it merely his imagination, or could he feel the warmth of Sean’s hand lingering? He pulled it open.

“Hey, Vig,” Sean said, and he was smiling wide, leaning against the doorframe with one hand. He lifted a hand and half-waved at Ariadna, who, Viggo could see, was leaning with one hip against the makeup table.

“Hey,” Viggo said. “I didn’t see you during the show.”

“I came here late. Only managed ta get one of the middle rows,” Sean shrugged a little, and he didn’t step into the room. There was a silence between their words, a space between their bodies, and Viggo felt a sudden, insistent resentment that stuck itself to the back of his throat.

“Could tell you were great even back there. Though, me biggest problem’s probably that I can’t understand a single word.”

When, Viggo thought, had Sean started smiling with only his mouth and not his eyes? When had he started smiling like that to Viggo?

“I think you two need to catch up,” Ariadna said, and there was a quiet chill to her voice. She picked up her purse and headed for the door. “I’ll just wait for you outside, Viggo.”

“Nah,” Sean said, and it was him who reached forward and brushed his hand against her wrist. He smiled, charming as always. “I’m goin’ soon; just came here to say hi ta Vig. I have a plane to catch.” He paused. Viggo knew he should say something, but all of his words had tangled themselves in his lungs, and he couldn’t even think of a single thing to say.

“I didn’t know Viggo was datin’ anyone,” Sean continued.

“Well,” Viggo said, finding his voice suddenly, and he was shocked at the bitterness of it. “I didn’t know you were dating anyone until Elijah called me to ask if I knew you got married. If, you know, we’re comparing.”

Sean gave him a long look. “Aye,” he said, and turned away. He crossed his arms. “Aye, there’s that.”

“Don’t,” Viggo said, and his hands were clenching into fists and he didn’t even know why. “Don’t you fucking dare to look like that.”

“What am I lookin’ like, Vee-goh?” Sean drew out his name, his Northern English accent exaggerated to the point of near-parody. He had drawn himself up, lips pulling back, showing teeth. Like a cornered predator.

Well, Viggo refused to be his prey. “What the hell are you doing in Spain, Sean?”

“Thought I knew, but looks like I’m wrong ‘bout this. Probably wrong ‘bout a lot of shit too. Like marryin’ Gina, since you want ta bring ‘er up. Like thinkin’ that you would give a shit that I’m ‘ere,” Sean was breathing hard now, spitting fire even though his voice was low, staring straight into Viggo’s eyes. “Should I be sorry that I ain’t fuckin’ perfect all the damn fuckin’ time? I ain’t you, Vig. I can’t fuckin’ think of what ta say on the fly. I can’t give you the right answer. I ain’t got any of the right answers.”

Viggo felt like he was suddenly lost at sea. “What,” he asked, slowly, “the fuck are you talking about?”

Sean suddenly sagged, rubbing a hand over his eyes. He laughed, a sound so bitter that it cut straight into Viggo’s heart. The cracks that had formed when he first saw Sean at the door deepened even further. “Nothin’,” Sean said. “I’m just- I’m just lonely and greedy, sick for attention, dyin’ fer company.”

Viggo’s brain screeched to a complete halt. “What-” he whispered. “What did you say?”

“Nothin’, Vig,” Sean said, and he scrubbed at his face. “I ain’t said nothin’. Look-”

“Don’t you fucking dare run away from me,” he didn’t know where it came from. Viggo didn’t know why he was suddenly so angry. He didn’t know why he growled like that, or when his hands had bunched themselves into Sean’s collar, pulling him close before he slammed him against the doorframe. He didn’t know when he started breathing hard through bared teeth, with his eyes fixed upon Sean’s, trying to find the right answers that the man had just declared he didn’t have.

“What. The. Hell. Did you just say?”

“Like a fallin’ heart,” Sean recited, voice flat, eyes fixed upon a spot on the wall that Viggo couldn’t see. “And graze the stone wall.”

Viggo’s hands grew numb, his anger drained off like someone had pulled the plug. He took a step back, and he couldn’t even think of anything to say. “You-”

Sean pushed him off, and shoved his hands into his own pockets immediately as if touching Viggo’s skin had been poison to him and he needed to rub it off immediately. “Picked it up one day. Got it stuck in me ‘ead since.” He shrugged, falsely casual.

“Sean-”

“I ain’t got any of the right answers, Vig,” Sean’s voice was soft now. Viggo was suddenly reminded of a room in the Heathrow Hilton, the smell of red wine, and Sean’s warmth and tears against his shoulders. “I ain’t even know what I’m doin’ ‘ere. But I just- I just got one question.”

He took a deep breath. “We’ve talked plenty since last Christmas. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Viggo retreated into anger. He turned his back to Sean, purposefully avoiding even Ariadna’s eyes. She was still standing there, watching the two of them. He didn’t want to know what she thought.

“I didn’t realise that you’ve become my nursemaid and I’ve got to report to you everything I do.”

“Nah,” Sean said, and his smile was crooked and there was no happiness in it at all. “Just thought I’m a friend. It ain’t matter, Vig.” He peeled himself from the wall, heading for the door. “Don’t worry ‘bout it. I’ll see you ‘round, yeah? Circuits, premieres such like.”

Viggo didn’t turn around; he watched Sean out of the corner of his eyes. His hands were clenched in his own pockets. “What about your garden?”

“It ain’t worth seein’,” Sean said, and he waved a hand, dismissing every single word he had ever told Viggo of his garden, of his heart’s joy. When he spoke next, it was to Ariadna, as if Viggo had completely disappeared between the end of one sentence and the start of the next.

“He’s a ‘andful. You sure you know what yer getting’ into?” It sounded like the beginning of a joke, but the punchline was lost and Sean wasn’t even bothering to try to find it.

“I know now,” Ariadna said, and her voice was soft and sad and knowing.

“Good. Good. Uh- sorry. We raised a racket. Didn’t mean to,” there was a pause. Viggo did nothing. Sean stepped out of the dressing room.

The door shut behind him with a click.

Medicated limbs, lonely and greedy, sick for attention, dying for
Company, you're drunk for days. Overburdened, moss-rotted branches
Heave slowly with the weak night breeze, like a falling heart, and
Graze the stone wall.

The nurse in won't let me leave.
- Viggo Mortensen, Weekends

Viggo had moved towards the door. He could hear Sean’s footsteps as they slowly faded. He leaned his forehead against it, eyes closed. It was ridiculous. He should move away from the door and change. There was a party he should go to; they had completed a successful run of the show. Viggo was one of the only two actors; he had to go.

He had to.

“I remember when we first started,” Ariadna spoke suddenly. Viggo had almost forgotten that she was there—what did that make him as a boyfriend? If he was even that in the first place. “You showed me the box in your suitcase, and told me that a piece of your heart is already lost to you, but you can try to give me the rest. That’s not true, is it?”

“Ari-”

“Shh, let me finish,” Ariadna said, and she had moved forward, dropping her head between his shoulderblades, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Part of my heart will always belong to David; I can’t help it, because he’s the father of my children. But David and I- we were slowly falling apart when Alatriste came along, and there you were. I have never told you this, have I?”

“No,” Viggo said, his own voice soft. It was as if both of them were afraid of raising their voices; as if the residue of his and Sean’s shouts and growls had lodged themselves into the walls and should not be disturbed.

“There you were,” she repeated. “I love you, you know. It’s impossible not to. But…you can’t even give me a single piece of your heart, can you? It’s all gone.”

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out. There was nothing else he could say, and he was falling because his legs couldn’t hold him out anymore. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

Ariadna said nothing. She only tugged him on the shoulder until he was turning around, pulling him close as he rocked back and forth. It was foolish, that he was over fifty and he was acting like a teenager with his heart broken for the first time, weeping in the dressing room. He clutched onto her with all of the desperation of a lost child. Like a man who had the foundations of his world rocked and he couldn’t find his equilibrium.

“I should be angry,” Ariadna said, and her hair was slowly stroking through his hair. She was speaking because she had to, he knew that. Like him, Ariadna was a verbal person.

“I was, you know, when he came in. I couldn’t help it, really. The moment he was there your eyes just went to him, and I disappeared completely from your sight. I thought it wasn’t fair, that he owned so much of you and he doesn’t even recognise it. He’s a usurper trying to take my rightful place, I thought,” she giggled a little at that. “But I realised that I got our positions completely wrong.”

She stroked a thumb against his temple. He pulled away from her, and wiped at his eyes. “How long have you been in love with him, Viggo?”

“I don’t know,” Viggo said, and he hiccupped a little. “I can’t figure out whether it started when I first saw him, or if it was a few months later.”

Ariadna laughed a little at that, and it sounded genuine. “When was that? Ten, twelve years ago?”

“Nineteen ninety-nine,” Viggo said, and he smiled a little lopsidedly. “Twelve years ago.”

He looked at her for a moment, and he couldn’t help it. He had to try. Had to lean in and press his lips to hers. They kissed slowly, with her hands cupping against his face and his clutching onto her shoulders. He kissed her like she was his one lifeline left, and if he could not breathe the air from her lungs, he could not breathe at all. He kissed her as hard as he could, trying to mean it, but all he could think of was that her shoulders were too thin, and she did not smell like smoke and whiskey, and she was not Sean.

His breath hitched, and he closed his eyes.

They pulled away immediately, and Ariadna kissed him on the temple instead.

“I’ve had nearly ten months with you, and I think that’s more than my fair share,” she said, her voice barely a wisp of air against his ear.

It sounded like a farewell. Viggo rubbed at his eyes. “He reads my poems,” he said, and he took a long, shuddering breath. “What the hell do I do, Ariadna?”

“Well,” she said. “That’s easy.”

“What?”

“Call him, Viggo. Go to him. You can’t wait anymore.”

***

He wanted to throw away the box. That cardboard box of Viggo’s works and words, the heart-pieces that Sean had always treasured—he had wanted to pick it up and throw it in the trash. Perhaps he could ask the hotel staff for their incinerator, so he could burn every single book. Every single CD. Maybe if he watched each page turn to ash, he could forget what he saw. He could stop feeling.

But he opened the flap, and he knew he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t read them either.

There was an envelope lying on top of the books. Sean dropped down to sit on the floor, opening it and turning it upside down. A cascade of Polaroids dropped to the ground.

He picked up the first one.



Vig,

I’m in this place named Saxony-Anhalt. I’m filming, and I’ve got no clue how good the film will be and I don’t care. Christ, Vig, everything here is gorgeous beyond belief. It makes the Buckingham Palace look like a toilet shed. Wish you’re here. You’d have found the right words and wrote poems about this place, and take better pictures.

I miss you, you daft, crazy bastard. You know they’re having me present to you the Empire Icon award? Wonder who gave them the idea.

Sean



Vig,

Looks like some kind of fairytale castle, doesn’t it? It’s kind of a crime, the way we’re using these places. The film’s dark and gory and bloody – yeah, I die during it, so you can get your jokes out of the way now – but the scenery’s damn beautiful in the morning and early afternoon. It’s summer now, so there’s a whole bunch of flowers blooming in the gardens. If not for London’s shit weather, I’d ask for cuttings.

I can’t fucking stop thinking about you. Don’t know if it’s because I’m here or something else, but wherever I turn, I keep seeing things that you’ll appreciate. I’ve even started thinking like you now, getting all concerned with camera angles and compositions and artistry and all that. I don’t know how you do it, turning a swimming pool into a piece of art while just a camera and light. Yeah, I’ve seen those. Don’t you dare laugh. It’s a good book. It’s good art.

You’ve got to come here some day. I keep seeing phantoms of you around the corner of my eyes. Are you haunting me or something? That must be the reason why I’m not thinking of Gina at all, and I keep thinking about you. Fucking odd, that.

Christ, I’m glad you’re never going to see any of these.

Yours,
Sean



Vig,

Shut up, you wanker. I can already hear you laughing. Yeah, it’s a postcard, so what? My puny little Polaroid camera can’t grab every detail, and it looks like absolute shite in black and white. Believe me, I tried. So I bought a postcard.

They call this the Town Hall, but look, the Town Hall of Sheffield is gorgeous and old and it’s got a history that I’m damn proud of it, but it still can’t compare to this. Just look at the topmost windows. I can’t find a postcard that shows every detail, but you can climb all the way up and look at them. I’m no good with words, so you have to come and see it for yourself. You have to, because when I saw it, I thought that it’ll be a damn shame if you never see it. The windows are stained glass, and they make use of colours in a way that makes me glad I never did become a painter, because I won’t ever be able to make something this beautiful.

I don’t finish filming even after the Awards are done; think we’re going to stretch into June. I’m going to ask you to come with you after, and yeah, I’m writing it down now so I won’t forget. I want to see your face when you see these beauties. I think I just want to see your face. I kind of miss it, as nonsense as that sounds.

You better have some spare time.

Always yours,
Sean



Viggo still hadn’t seen Saxony-Anhalt, as far as Sean knew; Sean never did ask him along. Instead, he had a single memory—the image of Viggo, half-smiling in his sleep, his hand clenched around the sheet like a child.

Sean closed his eyes and dropped the rest of the pile back into the envelope, and dropped that back into the box. He folded his arms and his head fell onto them. He wished at the moment that he could crawl into the box and live there. With the smell of well-made paper and ink and binding surrounded him, the symbols of Viggo and Viggo’s heart. It was the closest he could come to the real thing; he knew that now.

There was no anger left in him, because he knew that Viggo was right. There was no reason that Viggo would have to tell him anything, and it was only Sean’s own folly.

Why would Viggo have waited, when he didn’t even know there was something worth waiting for?

His phone rang. Sean looked at the screen, and flinched away at the name. There was no reason for Viggo to call him except to reject him even more or to try to re-establish their friendship. Sean wanted the latter—needed it, in fact—but not now. Not now, with his nerves scraped raw and laid open for the cold to bite at and to set in. Now, he would rather live in the past and in fantasies, so he could laugh at himself and his own foolish wishes. Laughing at himself was far less painful than to be laughed at by Viggo.

He waited for the ringing to end before texting his agent to get him a ticket back to London. There wasn’t any reason for him to go back; his girls would be spending Christmas separately with their mothers and their mothers’ extended families, and Sean would only have his cold, empty house and his dead garden to return to.

(Was that why he came here, so close to Christmas? The simple wish to not be alone? He was such a fucking pathetic bastard, if that was the case.)

The phone rang again. This time, Sean ended the call. His hand trembled.

He clenched it into a fist, and told himself that it was better this way. He had always been crap at relationships anyway. He would’ve just ruined whatever friendship they had left.

By the time his phone rang, Sean was already up, adjusting the cuffs of his jacket. He looked at it for a long moment, striding over and looking at the caller ID.

Viggo

Reaching out, his finger hovered over the red button for a long moment before he closed his eyes and pressed it. Then he stepped away, picked up the phone, and placed it on the table. He had another meeting today; more promotion for Cleanskin, which he didn’t mind doing (it was part of the job) but this was starting to get repetitive. At least he hadn’t needed to do much promotion right now for the press—now that was just saying the same things over and over again. He usually went on automaton for those.

He refused to think about Viggo, about the phone call, about the missed calls that he had been getting every single day for the past three weeks. He dived into his work and used that as an excuse—he couldn’t pick up the phone because he didn’t have the time. Every single call wore down at his resistance, and he knew that he had to pick up one day. He couldn’t run away; not from Viggo, not from their friendship. He couldn’t let what they had go to complete shit because he was a complete shit. Viggo was important to him; one of the few friends he made in this business and someone who… understood him.

(Yeah, that was a good, clean, and proper way to put it, wasn’t it?)

The box of Viggo’s heart-pieces he had placed back into his bedroom, but it had been moved from the wall to beside the bed, where he could pick any book at random and look over the photographs and trace his fingers over the words. He would feel the texture of the paper and weigh the heft of the book, and he could imagine Viggo painstakingly choosing the correct paper, the proper binding. Each one of these was made with care.

(And he would drop them back into the box like hot coal, hiding his face underneath the pillow as he slept so he could convince himself that he was not haunted by the ghosts of Viggo’s words; that he did not see Viggo’s face whenever he turned his head; that he did not ache to feel Viggo’s heat against his own skin.)

He still couldn’t pick up the call. He still couldn’t call back. He was making excuses to himself already—he was too busy, Viggo was probably on another continent. Except he knew perfectly well that Viggo was in London now. He had that Gala Premiere yesterday; Sean saw the pictures. He was surprised that Ariadna wasn’t with him.

If he didn’t take this chance—how long must he wait, must the both of them wait, before they were in the same country again?

Sean didn’t know. What he did know was that he should apologise; that it was ridiculous for Viggo to have to keep calling. Viggo had done nothing wrong, and he missed the man’s voice. Every single word he heard and every picture he saw only reminded him of the person who was missing.

His hand reached out towards the phone, then fell back to his side. Tomorrow. If Viggo called again tomorrow, he would answer.

(He had told himself the same yesterday, and the day before, and the day before.)

***

Viggo wasn’t particularly drunk yesterday night, so he woke up without a hangover in the suite that he shared with David and Michael. Keira actually lived in London, so she had gone home the previous day instead of staying in a hotel room, but the one person in London that Viggo could have—would have, wanted to—stayed with was completely out of the question nowadays.

Speaking of which… He didn’t bother to dress, walking out of the door in sweatpants. Michael was already up for some ungodly reason, his head dropped onto the glass table in the faux-kitchen area of the suite. He was groaning and making hangover noises. Viggo ignored him; this was a normal sight by now, and honestly, with the amount of alcohol he had drank the last night, he deserved it. Instead, Viggo parked himself onto the couch, switched on his phone, and dialled the number. He knew he could have just used the dialled number function. He knew he could use the speed dial. He didn’t, even though this had his ritual for something close to a few weeks now. He would call Sean at 10am London time, no matter where he was, and hope he picked up, even though he hasn’t so far.

The phone rang. Viggo waited, and counted the rings. Upon the sixteenth ring, it went to the answering machine. He switched off his phone very calmly, and stood up from the couch, walking over to the wall.

David and Vincent walked in just as he punched the wall as hard as he could without breaking his knuckles. There was a silence. David developed the look of a scientist peering at a particularly interesting toad doing somersaults underneath the microscope. Viggo sighed and let his hand drop to his side.

“… I’m pretty sure that’s not a hangover cure,” Vincent offered, finally. At the word ‘hangover’, Michael groaned, right on cue.

“The fuck are you doing here,” Viggo stated. It wasn’t really a question. Vincent didn’t have to attend the premiere, even though he lived only a Channel away while Viggo had to attend and he was in Spain, for God’s sake.

(He didn’t mind. It was a better alternative than returning back home; for some reason, returning to Idaho without Sean seemed like an admission of failure.)

“Monica had a photoshoot. Can’t I pop by and visit my friends?” Vincent shrugged, eyes wide and all-innocent. It worked as well as Kirill pretending to be straight. Viggo gave him a flat look. “Why are you living here anyway? I thought you have a friend,” he made that word sound particularly obscene (or French), in inflection, grinning as if he made a particularly good joke, “to live with.”

“Fuck off,” Viggo said pleasantly, stamping to the kitchens. He busied himself with the coffeemaker.

“Are you making coffee?” Michael lifted his head blearily from the table, his eyes bloodshot and hair ruffled. For a split second, he reminded Viggo of Sean during the endless mornings they had woken up near each other back in New Zealand, badly hungover and wincing at the light.

He growled underneath his breath.

“No, I’m making a potion that will summon Tinkerbell to me so that I can have some intelligent company.”

There was a long pause.

“David, if Vincent makes a fairy joke I will cut off his balls, and I really don’t want to do that to Monica.”

There was a longer pause.

“What crawled up his ass and died?” Michael whispered, so loud that he might as well have shouted it.

“It’s more of what didn’t crawl up his ass,” David replied enigmatically, linking his fingers and dropping his head on top of them, looking for all intents and purposes like an evil mastermind like Julius No. Or like Hannibal Smith, cackling that he loved it when a plan came together. Why did he start working for a director that looked like a stereotype again?

“I fucking hate you guys,” Michael complained. “Here I am, hungover and without coffee, and you’re all talking in code. Vincent, where the fuck did you come from?”

“Viggo’s potent Tinkerbell brew summoned me.”

“You don’t look any good in a leaf dress, you bastard,” Viggo said, and he plunked down coffee in front of Michael. Michael shouted a hallelujah to the ceiling before he hoarded it to his chest and started sipping. Viggo started on his mate.

“I want numbers, Viggo,” David intoned, half-ominous and half-completely insane. The words cut off any retort Vincent might have made.

“Twenty-one,” Viggo sighed. Vincent whistled under his breath.

Meanwhile, Michael had grabbed hold of Viggo’s hand, and placed a loud, flourishing kiss to the back of it. “My coffee saviour. Thank you. Now what was it about this twenty-one? Adele?”

Everyone else ignored him.

“Twenty-two tomorrow?” David asked, his voice deceptively mild. He was getting serious now. Viggo sighed, and took a sip of his too-strong mate to hide his face behind it. He sighed quietly to himself, and lifted his head.

“And twenty-three the next, and twenty-four, and so on, until I actually get a fucking answer.”

“Ever thought of not trying?”

“I don’t give up that easily.” Even though he wished he could.

By now, Vincent and Michael were looking at the two of them, turning their heads left and right, like watching a particularly fascinating tennis match. Vincent looked amused; Michael was entirely confused.

“Oh, I can think of plenty of exceptions.” David leaned back, his hands unfolding and shoving them into his pockets, and he sighed. “Goddamnit, Viggo, how many years have it been?”

“You didn’t have to go through my suitcase,” Viggo said, entirely wry, switching the subject with the complete ease that came with the secure knowledge that David knew exactly what he was talking about. David just had a knack for worming information out of him, whether he wanted to tell it or not. He drained his gourd and turned away, dropping it in the sink. David shrugged.

“I’m taking this as a punishment for my own actions.”

“I didn’t think I needed to be punished as well.”

“You’re not; what you’re doing to yourself should be enough, I think.”

Viggo only looked away. It wasn’t as if that wasn’t true, even though David seemed to have the misconception that Viggo had been an absolute saint during all of this instead of the truth that he was a fucking stubborn bastard while Sean was a moronic, stubborn bastard. Though, it seemed that he was the only one who wanted to fix it. Did his friendship meant that little to Sean?

“You know what?” Michael said finally, his voice breaking the lull of tense silence between the two of them. “I have decided that I really don’t want to know. I’m going to have a shower and cry salty tears about my lack of an Oscar nomination. And brush my teeth.” He raised a hand and wandered off into his own room.

Vincent watched him go, and then sighed. “Look, this is London. The food is utter shit, and I’ve been here long enough to find places to eat that won’t kill my tongue. I’ve decided to impart my knowledge to you and so,” he raised his voice to be heard through Michael’s door, “You’re all going to lunch with me.”

“We’re all in debt to your kindness,” David said, completely dry.

“Go wear a shirt, Viggo. And something that I won’t be ashamed of to be walking next to, please,” Vincent gave him a little nudge on the shoulder. Viggo let himself be nudged, stumbling forward.

“One day I’m going to wear the ugliest shirt while in your company, you French snob,” the insult was half-hearted, because Viggo was already heading back to his own room. He tossed the phone onto the bed. It wasn’t as if it would be of any use for the rest of the day. Sean wasn’t picking up his phone. He didn’t want to hear anything Viggo had to say, even though they were in the same country for a substantial period of time. These occasions weren’t exactly numerous.

He just had to face the fact that Sean didn’t want to look at him. That would take some time to get used to. Viggo rubbed his hand over his eyes.

“Then I hope you like running around naked!” Vincent hollered suddenly from behind him. Viggo, who was used to this, didn’t even jump as he flipped him off, closing the door in his face.

Tomorrow. He would call Sean again tomorrow. That would be the last time he would call him.

No matter what Ariadna had said, it seemed that he would have to give up one day.

Viggo went back to America. He purposefully avoided Idaho and Los Angeles. Instead, he headed to Boston under the pretence that the Coolidge Theatre was going to present an award to him and he might as well get comfortable in the city instead of flying in and out, especially since he had to give a speech.

He knew that Sean was in the country—there was that Snow White movie coming up, and Sean had always been spectacular when it came to fulfilling his obligations with regards to movie promotions. Viggo acquainted himself with a few gossip sites and looked at the pictures, and he wondered how Sean could have seem to age years since the last time he saw him, and how no one else seemed to have noticed at all.

His phone was ringing again. Viggo stared at it, willing it to stop—the caller ID didn’t say Sean, and Sean was the only person he wanted to talk to nowadays. But it was his agent, and Viggo sighed as he picked it up.

“You weren’t going to pick up the phone, were you?” his agent began.

“Not really,” Viggo said. “I’m kind of busy right now.”

“You’re in Boston without anything scheduled,” came the tart reply. “Anyway, I have something pretty interesting for you. Do you remember the guy who presented you with that Empire Icon Award?”

“… What? Sean—”

His agent chuckled. “That caught your attention, didn’t it? Yeah, the guy called me up—he did it himself and not his agent. Turns out that he has a ticket to some remote German state for you, and he wants to ask if you have anything scheduled for the next month or so.”

“Uh—”

“I told him that you have something three weeks free since A Dangerous Method finished promotions.” Viggo tried to speak again, but he was completely steamrolled. “So you have a plane to catch tomorrow at 2pm at Logan Airport. I’m emailing you the ticket; print it out and pack something decent.”

“Wait,” Viggo said, raising his voice. “Wait a fucking minute, I haven’t agreed to anything yet!”

“I’m not stupid, Viggo,” his agent said, perfectly calm. “And I am not going to play messenger between the two of you again. My job is to manage relations between you and studios and directors, because God knows you need it, not to manage lovers’ spats.”

“We aren’t—”

“Yeah, and that’s the exact problem, isn’t it? Look, the ticket is to Saxony-Anhalt. I just Googled it, and it is as out of the way as possible. It’s also in Germany. Be as continental as you like. Just don’t get photographed having sex on the streets and come back in time for your Coolidge presentation and I won’t bother you too much about it.”

“We’re not going to—”

“Good. Now go pack your bags.”

Viggo stared at his phone and the flat, halting dial tone that was left behind after his agent hung up. He took a deep breath. Sean just sent him an invitation to a country that he had never been in and which spoke a language he did not speak whatsoever through his agent rather than speaking to him. Instead of calling Viggo. Or picking up his phone.

When had they reached this point? Viggo didn’t know. He closed his eyes, and sighed. Saxony-Anhalt it was.

So much for not flying in and out of Boston.

***

5 February 2012


He landed in Leipzig/Halle when the sunlight was still piercing through the glass. Mid-morning in the middle of Europe, with winter barely out of the door and spring hovering near the corner, the light was almost painfully piercing his eyes. Viggo squinted slightly as he held a hand above his face; he had just gone through customs, and he watched as everyone else on the plane gravitated towards their friends, families, relatives or even business partners that had come to pick them up. But he only stood there, trying to catch a glimpse of gold without turning his head.

Somehow, he didn’t want anyone else to realise that he was actively looking for someone. It was probably irrational and entirely foolish, but then again, there was nothing remotely rational about this whole trip.

“Vig.”

The voice was soft, hesitation thickening the familiar brogue even further. Viggo turned around to see Sean standing there, his hands in his pockets. They looked at each other for a long moment. Viggo refused to make the first move; he simply refused.

“Hey,” Sean said, and he lowered his eyes for a moment before looking up again. “I- I’m glad yer ‘ere. I know that yer busy right now, so…”

When, Viggo thought, had we started speaking to each other so formally?

He exhaled; the sound of the breath echoed around them. “What do you want me here for, Sean?”

“I was...” Sean hesitated again. “I was here in 2009, for Black Death.” He licked his lips, and Viggo let himself stare at his mouth for just the briefest of seconds. “And all the time I was here, I kept thinkin’- you should see this place. Was… was actually thinkin’ of invitin’ you back wi’ me after the Empire Awards, but I supposed I got too drunk ta think ‘bout it and the next mornin’ I was almost late fer me flight already so—”

He dragged a hand through his hair, falling silent.

“Show me then,” Viggo said, keeping his voice low and soft.

“… The car’s out back.” Sean took a step before stopping abruptly. His smile was crooked and unsure, but it reached his eyes. His lips parted, but it took a few seconds more before the words came along.

“Travellin’ light again, huh?”

Viggo snorted, swinging his one duffel bag across his shoulders, feeling the edge of his treasure box pressing against his back. “Ever seen me do anything else?”

“World might end early if ya change yer ‘abits.”

***

Palace Blankenburg was a beautiful place, but Viggo could barely see it. Neither Sean nor he had said anything ever since they left the airport; the silence and unspoken words hung over all of them like a glass box. Everything outside of the two of them was distorted, twisted, and Sean was the only thing he could see with any clarity at all.

He wished that they would stop walking; that they could instead sit down and talk like they desperately needed to. That they needed to ever since New Zealand. But he had been waiting—they had both been waiting—for such a long time now that he couldn’t even think of the first word to say to break the silence. They had so many chances to speak that they bypassed through the years, letting the opportunities slip past their fingers out of habit or out of a fear of change. Maybe it was simply because there were too many people around them, even when they were alone, the ghosts of the public haunted them, sending prickling up and down their skins.

All Viggo could do now was to follow Sean, eyes half-lidded as he listened to their feet tapping uneven rhythms on the cobblestones of Saxon-Anhalt. They circled the Palace and pretended that there was nothing that needed to be said, even though the pieces of their unbroken agreement still lingered in a dressing room in a Madrid theatre, never to be picked up again.

“Yer not seein’ anythin’, are you?”

The words—so sudden and unexpected—jerked Viggo out of his thoughts, and he blinked suddenly, raising his head to look at Sean. The other man had stopped, his shoulders hunched as he looked at Viggo.

“No,” Viggo said, his voice soft. In the distance, he could hear the cooing of doves; this was, after all, Europe. He did not continue: Because all I can see is you.

Sean sighed for a long moment. He tipped his head up and stared at the sky. It was going into afternoon, and truly, Viggo felt a tinge of regret that it was not dusk. But then again, that would be too cliché—to fall in love at sunrise, and to find that it was truly impossible at sunset, a dozen years later. If this was a story, if this was a poem, Viggo would have the day just beginning, with streaks of light across the darkness and landing in Sean’s golden hair.

But it was merely life, and the poetics of life could only be searched for instead of made.

“I should have,” Sean started, haltingly. Viggo turned to look at him. “Should have offered you two tickets. I’m glad you came, though. Is- is Ariadna alright?”

“I think so,” Viggo shoved his hands into his pockets. “I don’t know; I haven’t seen her since Madrid, and that was before Christmas.”

Sean’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. He nudged Viggo, feigning playfulness. “What kind of lover are you to abandon your girlfriend during Christmas?”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Viggo said, and he sighed at how juvenile that sentence sounded. Even Henry wouldn’t be caught dead saying something like that. He dragged a hand through his hair. “We… broke up. It wouldn’t have worked anyway. I don’t like lying to her.”

Silence. “Oh,” Sean said finally, when it seemed too obvious that there was nothing else that could be said.

They looked at the palace again.

“Will you—”

“I have—”

They looked at each other. Viggo cracked a small smile, and Sean ducked his head, embarrassed. He shrugged.

“I have something to show you,” Viggo said, quietly. “I’d rather not do it here. Do you have a room around here or something?” The weight of the bag was suddenly so heavy that it seemed to have lead bars dropped into it within the last second. Viggo tried to not bite his own lip.

But Sean had no such compunction. He licked his lips again, then nodded, “Wanted ta ask if you would come back wi’ me, to me hotel room. I… I have somethin’ ta show you as well.”

They looked at each other for a long moment, words hanging in the silence, so loudly unspoken that Viggo thought they might deafen him. There were no first words that he could find after groping in the dark for them, and his skin itched as if to tell him that this was too public a place; that if he was to be humiliated, he refused to have it be at a place where others could see.

“Let’s go to your hotel,” he said finally.

Sean nodded.

***

In half an hour, they were standing in the living room area of Sean’s hotel suite. It was one of those anonymous hotel rooms again, built for tourists attracted by the landmarks. Though this place was smaller than most, the layouts of the building and the room itself were too much the same. Viggo hated hotel rooms; they always seemed to be a nebulous, unreal space, and he could find no roots in them. There were only two real things in this entire place.

Sean finally spoke, “I’ve wanted ta show you this fer a long time.” He had his hands shoved into his pockets.

“Show me what?”

He shook his head, slipping his hand into his pocket and producing the bedroom key. He held it out to Viggo. “Go inta the room, Vig,” he said quietly, “and turn to your left. There’s a box on the floor. I think- I think it’ll explain everythin’.”

Viggo took the key, and noted that Sean’s hand was cold and a little wet against his skin. He was still holding onto his duffel bag, and he clutched it even closer to him as he moved towards the door. He unlocked it. Every move seemed to be made in slow motion as he opened the door open.

The box stood out to him the moment he first stepped into the room—the only thing that had any personality in the midst of anonymity. It was a long, brown thing, its covers and flaps creased and folded from too much use, its edges and corners bent from being ill-used. He fell to his knees, and opened the covers.

His books stared out at him. Starting from Ten Last Night, which he wasn’t aware that could be found these days. Then, in chronological order: Recent Forgeries, Errant Vine, Hole in the Sun, SignLanguage, Coincidence of Memory… and so on, ending with Winter Songs. Though they were hardcovers and each book had been reverently wrapped in plastic to save them from creasing, nothing could disguise the creases on the pages themselves from too much reading.

Viggo let his fingers take him to the end of the box. Tucked in the corner, in the space left behind by the books, were his CDs. There were… fifteen of them, with only Pandemoniumfromamerica missing. Viggo’s breath caught. There was an envelope lying on top of the CDs, and Viggo reached for it.

“I wore one of them out,” Sean’s voice came from the door. Viggo whirled around to look at him, the envelope forgotten as he stared at Sean’s closed-off figure. The ankles and arms were crossed, and he leaning against the doorframe and looking into space, as remote and far from Viggo as it was possible to be.

“I listened ta it too much, and the sound’s not as good anymore. So I got a new one, but I gave the address for me ‘ouse in London, and I ‘aven’t been back there fer a while.”

“Sean—”

“I carry it wi’ me everywhere; it’s like a lucky charm ta me, you see?” Viggo jerked at that, his eyes widening. He tried to say something, but Sean was on a roll. “It started all the way back in 2000, and I didn’t know why I was doin’ it. Later… later I figured- if I can’t ‘ave you, then I can at least ‘ave yer words and yer voice. It might be somethin’ that I share wi’ the world, but I ain’t mind that. It’s the closest thin’ I can get ta actually havin’ you, I thought.”

He rubbed his hand over his eyes, suddenly looking very old, very tired. “Yeah, I know. I know, it’s fuckin’ pathetic ta collect all yer stuff like that without tellin’ you.”

“It’s not,” Viggo finally found his voice. The words were loud and resonant, ringing in the room. “It’s not pathetic, Sean- look. Wait. Just- stay there.”

He could speak, but his words were clumsy and inarticulate. Even his hands were shaking. But Viggo ignored all of that, reaching for his duffel bag. He opened the zip, bypassing his camera and the two changes of clothes he brought and immediately grabbing onto the small, metal box. Viggo pulled it out before he stumbled over to the bed. Almost reverently, he placed the thing on top of the white sheets. It wasn’t locked, so he opened the box and tipped it over.

Photographs, notes, letters, tapes, and a single shirt spilled all over the bed; a cacophony of colours and black and white, of script and pictures both.

“You didn’t have books or CDs for me to pore over,” Viggo said, and he kept his back to Sean. His fingers were still shaking. “So I…” he took a deep breath. “I kept every photograph I’ve ever taken of you, every note you’ve written to me. I’ve even taped your voicemails to save them.”

He ran a shaky hand through his hair, and didn’t dare to turn around. “I’ve brought this everywhere with me. It’s a lucky charm; before the start of every single movie, I would look at you first. Every time, as if… I needed to see you to reassure myself, to conquer my fear. Dave—David Cronenberg—knew. Ariadna knew. I wasn’t very good at hiding it. Whenever I had trouble separating myself from my character, I would reach for you. Because that’s the strongest thing that separates me from anyone else I’ve ever played—my want for you.”

Sean’s footsteps were loud in the room, and Viggo closed his eyes when he felt arms wrap around him slowly, cautiously. As if Sean was afraid that he would push him away at any moment. Viggo held his breath, and slowly leaned back into Sean’s arms.

“You could’ve just called me,” Sean murmured into his ear. “And I could’ve just called you. All this time… we’re pretty fuckin’ pathetic, aren’t we?”

Viggo laughed, because Sean’s words were perfectly true. He closed his eyes. Just for the moment.

“…first time,” he started, and he could feel Sean stiffen then slowly relaxed behind him. “Smelling you with permission: shoulders to wonder openly at.” He turned around slowly, his fingers curling over Sean’s shoulders. Sean’s mouth moved down, dry against Viggo’s neck. “As carefully kissed,” his voice hitched at the mouth against his collarbone, “as those arms waited impossibly on. They've held me now.”

“And your breath,” Sean picked up the thread, his voice soft and low and thrumming against Viggo’s skin. He buried his face into Sean’s neck, his breath hot against his skin as his fingers danced down his spine. “Down my back sent away night air that had me shaking in the unlit Anglican doorway.”

They faced each other now. Sean was solid in Viggo’s arms, warm and heavy and so real that it knocked the breath out of his chest.

“It’s selfish,” the words tumbled out of him, sentences full-formed in his head without the agreement of his thoughts. “But I don’t have a single photograph from any of your photoshoots. I hate to see the photographs that others took of you. You are always so still, each angle sharp and perfect, with all of your flaws and movements erased. You always look so polished.” Viggo closed his eyes. His breath ghosted against Sean’s skin; they were so close. “You are the most beautiful in a bar, cheering and laughing when the Blades score, with your hair all over your face and your smile wide enough to split skin, teeth stained with smoke and alcohol and your eyes glittering green like the sea.”

“Vig,” Sean breathed, and the heat of his breath on Viggo’s skin sent a shiver down his spine. They took another step together simultaneously, and Viggo’s vision was filled entirely by green. The green of Sean’s eyes as their foreheads met. They breathed in each other’s exhales.

“I have been trying to paint you for years. I write you into every consonant, every vowel; I paint you with every brush stroke, every colour, on every canvas. Only my photographs remain clean, but I’ve dreamt of it. I’ve dreamt of taking a single photograph—of a bead of sweat hovering against your eyelash, monochrome but for the startling green of your eyes.” His fingers trembled against Sean’s cheek. “Your body is a work of art, and I want to display it as art. Not merely in films, with cruel cameras that strip you clean and whore you out. I want to- I dream of undressing you, pulling each thread apart until your skin and imperfections are revealed, the sun in your hair. Your throat is a Grecian column. I want to photograph you when you swallow. I want…”

Viggo took a deep breath. There was a line that they had not dared cross; not once. He dived across it.

“I want to see how your lips look like with my cock between them.”

“Vig,” Sean whispered again, and he lifted his head, nosing and nuzzling against Viggo’s temple. His lips were dry against his temple, and his soft kiss was far more intimate than any other kiss that he ever had. His body burned against Viggo’s.

“Vig. I ain’t got the words. Not like you. Wish I do, but I ain’t. All I can do is—”

“I don’t need them,” Viggo’s voice was low and fierce. He pressed a kiss against Sean’s cheek, and felt his breath tremble in his lungs. He splayed his hand against Sean’s chest. “You’ve kept my words and my paintings and my pictures so close to your heart all this while. That’s enough. That’s more than enough.”

Sean shook his head, “No. No, it ain’t. I’m not lettin’ either of us ta get away so easily. Your words are beautiful, but Viggo, but I want you.” He cupped Viggo’s jaw and tilted his head up.

“I want you.”

They looked at each other, and it was a mere heartbeat—a single second—but within it contained thirteen years of longing. There was no sunset here, but Sean’s hair still gleamed like spun gold. But his eyes were fixed upon Viggo’s instead of the distance, and when they kissed it was as if every promise that had ever been made was suddenly fulfilled.

The kiss was soft and sweet and slow, their lips moulded against each other. Neither of them moved to deepen it, but Viggo had been waiting far too long. His fingers closed around the cashmere of Sean’s sweater, and he pulled him in even as he leaned in hard, parting their mouths and finally tasting Sean after so many years of wanting to. He could feel Sean’s hand in his hair, warm and large, cradling his skull. Viggo pulled him even closer, trying to deepen the kiss and lean into that touch at the same time; opening his mouth and tasting Sean on the tip of his tongue. Sean tasted like aged whiskey and smoke and tea—everything and nothing like Viggo had ever imagined.

“Sean,” He gasped, trying to breathe under the torrent of emotions that he had kept locked behind the gates. “Sean.”

“That’s me name alright,” Sean said against his lips, and his amusement was almost drowned completely by the sheer want in his voice. They pulled apart out of the need to breathe. “Viggo. Vig. Viggo,” Sean breathed, proving himself a hypocrite by saying the name over and over as if tasting it on his tongue for the first time. His hand formed bruises on Viggo’s shoulder, but he didn’t care. He arched towards the pain.

They looked at each other. Sean’s calluses were rough and perfect against Viggo’s skin.

“I think,” he said, his voice low and hoarse. “I think we’ve waited long enough.” His hand slid down, trailing the line of Viggo’s neck to his spine, down his arm to close around his wrist. He tugged.

“Come to bed wi’ me?”

Viggo took a deep breath, and looked into Sean’s eyes. They were no longer green, but darkened, the pupils swallowing up the irises until the merest rim of emerald could be seen. Viggo knew that his own eyes looked the same, and he took a step forward. Then another one until he was near enough to slide his fingers into Sean’s hair. He kissed him gently, just once, before he wrapped his legs around the back of Sean’s knees and pushed him onto the bed. Sending him crashing back amongst the treasures that Viggo had collected for so long.

With one hand, Viggo swept off every single one, letting them flutter to the ground, ignoring where it landed. His eyes were fixed on Sean. He didn’t need those things now.

He had the real thing right here.

***

There was a hand in Viggo’s hair, stroking slowly through the greyed strands.

“’ow long ‘ave you got?”

“Mm?” Viggo cracked an eye open. He had been awake for a while. It was the middle of the night, which perturbed him even though it didn’t surprise him. Honestly, he should be too old to be having sex in the day, but who the hell cared about silly rules like that? He sat up slowly, turning around to look at Sean. His breath stuck itself in his throat.

“I said, ‘ow long ‘ave you got? Before you ‘ave ta go back,” Sean repeated, sounding a little exasperated. But he was smiling. Smiling and stretched out on his stomach, the expanse of his back completely bare. Viggo reached out and touched the spot right between Sean’s shoulderblades, walking his fingers down each knob of his spine. He could feel the tiny tremors of the muscles underneath his hand.

Then he reached out, pushing Sean over to his back before he leaned in and kissed him, wet and hot and hard. Sean hummed quietly against his lips, his hand sliding into Viggo’s hair as if holding onto him was something he couldn’t fathom not doing, and Viggo felt dizzy at how right this felt. How good this felt. He felt almost sick at the thought of how much time they had lost by waiting for something that had been there all along.

But Sean pulled away, nipping against his lobe, and Viggo kicked out that line of thought. He closed his eyes, turning his head and capturing Sean’s lips again.

“Three weeks,” he said, his voice muffled. His hand stroked down Sean’s side, and he took the small sigh and breathed it in; letting the heat and the scent settle within himself. Like the time within during the Empire Awards, except now he didn’t have to hold on so tightly—he knew he could breathe it in whenever he wanted, now. “Think we can stay here all the time?”

Sean snorted, cupping Viggo’s face with his hand. Viggo leaned into it, licking against the base of the thumb that hovered temptingly in front of him, and gloried in the tiny hitch of breath that Sean gave him. “I actually want you ta see all the sights, you know—”

“Oh, I think I have the best sight that Saxony-Anhalt can offer right here with me,” Viggo grinned.

“Shut yer mouth,” Sean punched him on the shoulder, and Viggo nudged him with it. They looked at each other for a moment before laughing, and Sean took the chance to push Viggo over until he was on his back.

“As I was sayin’,” he continued, with an exaggerated Northern drawl. “I’m gonna bring you ta all the sights, show you off ta the locals…” he leaned in and kissed Viggo on the temple. “But that’s fer tomorrow, I think.

“We have ta years ta catch up with, today.”

Viggo reached up, curling his fingers around Sean’s neck. “Yeah,” he smiled, opening his mouth as Sean leaned in.

“We do, yeah.”

***

10 March 2012


He found himself smiling more, nowadays. His life was starting to become a cliché, and Viggo knew that it was a good thing that Sean didn’t come with him back to Boston. He wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything.

It seemed that he had spent thirteen years learning patience, only for it all to be forgotten with the space of three weeks. Every single inch of him seemed to ache with want and need for something that he now knew the shape and scent and touch of.

But he didn’t call Sean. He told him that he wouldn’t. They had to try—to get use to the separation and the times when Viggo would reach out and could not find Sean at the end of his fingers. They were actors and nomads all, living on two different continents, and if they could not breathe without the scent of each other weighing in their lungs then they would fall apart.

Sean knew it better than he did. They were in the car outside Leipzig/Halle when they said goodbye.

“I’ve got so many relationships that fell apart ‘cause I can’t be there all the time. ‘Cause of work, and I can’t—I can’t deal wi’ not havin’ work lined up,” Sean said, and Viggo felt his hand trembling against his cheek. “But I ain’t going ta let it happen ta us.”

“We’ve always falling back in step even after years apart,” Viggo said, quiet and gentle, crawling over the handbrake to lean against Sean, pressing him against the door. It was a strange reversal of their positions four years ago. “It’s just now—now, I will always find you. I won’t wait anymore.”

“Find yer way ‘ome ta me, Viggo,” Sean whispered against his mouth, holding him so close. “And I’ll find mine ta you.”

Then he had pulled back and pushed an envelope towards Viggo’s chest. “I wrote the whole bunch the last time I was here,” he said, and he smiled, lopsided and overly fond. “Never meant fer you ta see it, but you’ve seen far more of me than I ever thought you would. I’ve got yer words wi’ me, and you… you should ‘ave mine.”

Now Viggo was standing outside Sean’s house, his rented car parked in his driveway and stroking his thumb over the key to the front door. He opened the gate himself, and now he took a breath and unlocked the front door, stepping through into the house. His shoes had gotten lost somewhere between the airport and getting out of the car, but Viggo didn’t exactly car. He dropped his luggage at the hallway, locking the door again, and looked for Sean.

Sean was, of course, in the garden.

“I think I just want to see your face,” Viggo said, lips quirking up as he leaned against the doorframe that opened the kitchen up into the garden. “I kind of miss it, as nonsense as that sounds.”

Sean’s hands half-sunk into topsoil. He turned around and his smile was brighter than the sun when he saw Viggo, jumping up immediately. His clothes were covered in dirt and mud, but Viggo didn’t care, reaching out to take Sean into his arms before he kissed him hard. He could feel bits of dirt embedding itself into his hair, and Viggo laughed quietly into Sean’s mouth.

“I cancelled out those lines, oy,” Sean said, nudging him with a hip. “Yer ain’t supposed ta see ‘em.”

“I like those lines,” Viggo said, grinning, knowing that he had completely missed the point and didn’t care at all.

Sean laughed quietly, and he didn’t let go. “So you’ve got a new trophy to decorate the shelves with now, huh?”

There was a pause, and Viggo reached up, traced Sean’s brow with the tip of a finger. “I’ve brought it with me,” he said, soft and quiet. Sean’s smile faded as he held his gaze. “Can I… can I put it here?”

Sean’s eyes softened; he knew what that meant. “Mi casa es tu casa,” he nodded, voice tripping slightly over the unfamiliar language.

“No,” Viggo shook his head. “Su casa es nuestra casa; mi casa es nuestra casa. Your home is our home; my home is our home.”

“Aye,” Sean said, and he was so warm against Viggo's skin. “Welcome home, Viggo.”

“Estoy en casa.”

He found his way home.

It was Elijah’s idea, born from too many years away from his friends and a never-fading wish of being able to see all of them again. He wanted to catch up and hug them all, wanted to find out about their lives through their own lips instead of tabloids and newspapers. He spent so many months in New Zealand for the shooting of The Hobbit again, and watched the bonds being formed amongst the dwarves and between the sole hobbit and the dragon—and he missed his friends with an ache that he refused to deny.

But it was Dom who was the organiser. Elijah called him up immediately, knowing that Dom was likely to be the only one who kept in touch with everyone. Though, the most difficult part of finding ‘everyone’ was already accomplished—Peter hired Orlando for Legolas again, and their Elf couldn’t disappear out of sight. Dom didn’t even begrudge Orlando bringing Miranda; after all, Billy would be bringing Ali as well, and he could guess that Viggo might be bringing Ariadna (or David). Dom didn’t even want to imagine who Beanie would bring—he really hoped it wasn’t a girl younger than him.

It took a few months of calling people, negotiating schedules, and professional wheedling before the whole Fellowship agreed. They were meeting in Wellington a day after the premiere of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and Pete, Fran and the other produces decided to give the Hobbit cast the day off before continuing the tour so they could have their reunion.

Sean—Sean Astin—had helped him to rent a place in Wellington that was more of an empty house than a hotel; it really was just a giant space surrounded by four walls. There were power plugs at the walls, a refrigerator, tables and chairs, and grills at the back porch. There was a beat-up piano near a corner, with a curtain draped over it. Dom had placed the jukebox and his and Elijah’s iPods over on that corner for the sheer irony of it, and the three hobbits had laughed a little about how they were using iPods now when they would have to bring stacks of CDs years ago.

It had been thirteen years. Sometimes Dom still couldn’t believe it. The memories of the Rings were still as clear as they were yesterday.

Most of the Fellowship—along with Ali, Christine, and Orlando’s Miranda—and Karl, Craig, David, and their Miranda had arrived around an hour ago, and the party was in full swing. They were only missing their King and his almost-Steward, and Dom was punching Sean’s number into the phone. Viggo wasn’t answering his phone, though Dom wasn’t worried. Knowing him, it was likely that the phone was ringing at the bottom of some lake. Sean, however, was rarely late and almost always picked up his phone. That was worrying.

“Dear boy,” Ian said, coming close to him. “I think you can put the phone down. I hear a car outside.”

Dom blinked, looking at Ian for a long moment before he heard voices.

“I tol’ you ta take the left turn, not the right one—”

“I know Wellington better than you, Sean, I stayed here for longer.”

Dom turned to Ian. “It’s unfair that you have better hearing than I do,” he put a little bit of whine in his voice.

Ian chuckled, placing a hand on Dom’s shoulder. “Eventually you will learn to listen for what’s important, Dom. In the meantime, let’s greet our Men.”

But it seemed Viggo and Sean weren’t finished yet.

“You can get lost a half-mile from me ‘ouse, much less yer own. You should’ve let me drive. ‘sides, it’s the wrong side of the road fer you. I can’t trust yer directions.”

“I’m not letting you drive. You drive every car like a Land Rover!”

“We should’ve hired a Land Rover.”

“It’s Wellington, it’s not the South Island.”

“What does that ‘ave ta do with anythin’? I drive a Land Rover in London.”

“Because you’re a shameless bastard who never realises the kind of glares you get with your giant car taking up half a four-lane road on the streets.”

“Yeah, it’s fuckin’ fantastic, ain’t it?”

“Who knows that if Boromir had lived, he and Aragorn would start arguing like a married couple?” Dom cut in before Viggo could reply, leaning against the doorway. “You two are late.”

They looked at each other for a moment. Sean quirked his lips up a little. Viggo shrugged, and leaned in towards Sean, bumping their shoulders together like they were kids. Then Sean ducked his head, and his shoulders shook. The whole exchange took less than three seconds. Dom frowned, and beside him, he could feel Ian straightening up and narrowing his eyes.

“We took the wrong turn,” Viggo said. He walked forward and Dom opened his arms for a hug, which he got along with a heavy slap on the back. “Good to see you, Dom.” He pulled away, and gave Ian the same bear hug.

Dom stuck out his hand to Sean, and Sean laughed, grabbed it and pulling Dom close, hugging him tight before letting him go. He gave Ian a handshake first, then shook his head and hugged back when the older man pulled him into an embrace.

“Has everyone else arrived?” Viggo asked, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“Yeah,” Dom grinned. “Karl, Miranda and Dave are here too. Oh, and all the girls are off-limits, Beanie—they are all taken, so don’t even try.”

Viggo and Sean looked at each other for a long moment before bursting out laughing. Ian was laughing too, and Dom looked at all of them. That was a joke, but he didn’t think it was that funny. Something was going on here and he wasn’t noticing it.

What was it that Ian had just said? That he had to learn to notice the important things? He squinted at Viggo and Sean, realising for the first time that Sean—impeccable, three-piece-suit Sean—had his hair mussed, his tie loose, and his jacket was unbuttoned. Viggo was wearing mismatched socks with his leather shoes, but otherwise he looked normal. Meaning that his collar was unbuttoned, his tie looked a sad state of affairs, his slacks were wrinkled, and his hair was a rat’s nest.

Sean seemed to have noticed Dom’s scrutiny, and he reached up and combed his hair with just his hands, sending the dark blond strands all over his face. He had grown his hair out again, and he was fixing his clothes with the ease of long practice. Then he turned around and grabbed hold of Viggo’s lapels, straightening them before he tipped Viggo’s head up. Viggo obligingly lifted his head and let Sean fix his tie and collar. Then Sean looked Viggo up and down, and sighed, as if telling himself that there was nothing to be done about the wrinkles on Viggo’s pants and the socks.

Dom could feel Ian’s silent laughter next to him.

Something weird was going on. Dom had a sinking suspicion about what, but… it couldn’t be, right? He was probably just imagining things; after all, Billy used to fix his clothes all the time and Billy was married now.

“We should go in,” Viggo said, trying to tame his hair into some sort of neatness. Sean looked amused.

“Let’s,” Ian said, seeming to have calmed down though he kept smirking at Viggo. Viggo, proving himself just as much a shameless bastard as he accused Sean of being, completely ignored him.

There was a huge roar when Viggo and Sean stepped into the lodge, and the two of them were buried beneath people almost immediately. Dom slipped off and grinned to himself.

Now the Fellowship was finally complete.

***
Elijah wasn’t surprised that it was Viggo who first found the piano and shut off the jukebox—he knew that Viggo could play. But he was surprised at what Viggo said next.

“Sean! Sean- sorry Astin, not you. Bean, you bastard, come over. Your King wants you.” Viggo grinned over the burst of laughter that remark caused.

“My King can go fuck himself,” Sean shouted back good-naturedly before he meandered over to Viggo, making a detour around the table where Pete, Fran and John were huddling together with easy grace that Elijah still hadn’t mastered even after thirteen years. “What is it, Vig?”

“Look at this,” Viggo tossed back the cloth Elijah had used to cover the piano. His fingers traced along the top of the cover. “Isn’t she gorgeous?”

“She’s old,” Sean said, voice low. “The keys are made of real elephant ivory- come over here, Vig. Can you see the ovals here? There’s growth rings on the keys.” He shakes his head, “She must be at least seventy years old. Why the hell is she in this place?”

“Abandoned, most likely,” Viggo said, and Elijah watched as he tossed the top of the piano off and propping it up. “Do you think it’s still in tune?”

“Nah, likely ta be not,” Sean said, and his fingers walked across the white keys. The piano made a few sounds. Out of the corner of his eyes, Elijah could see Orlando turning to watch. He wasn’t surprised—during the shoot, it seemed that Orlando’s eyes always followed where Viggo went. Thirteen years later and it seemed that not much had changed.

Though it seemed that there were still things he could learn about his friends. Elijah had never known that Beanie could play the piano.

“She can probably do with a tunin’, but she’s still pretty alrigh’. Won’t bleed any ears,” Sean grinned. Viggo bumped their shoulders together, getting a laugh before Sean dropped himself onto the piano bench. “You’re a demandin’ bastard,” Sean said, though Viggo hadn’t said anything at all.

The voices in the background petered off and faded when Sean began to play. Elijah didn’t know the song—he might have a huge CD collection, but there were things that not even he knew. He knew that part of the reason why was that he was mesmerised by the look on Sean’s face—his eyes half-lidded, lips pressed together gently as if humming. He was struck by the look on Viggo’s—on the way he looked at Sean as if he was every single dream he ever had come true in that one second, and they took Sean’s form.

Sean paused in his playing, and he shifted sideways against the piano bench. Their eyes didn’t even have to meet before Viggo took the message and sat down on the bench, looking at Sean and the keys for a moment before his fingers landed on the ivory, starting a halting rhythm. Sean slowed the song to suit him, and they played together.

It was a sweet song, but Elijah could barely hear it. How could he have missed this? Was it something new? How could he have not known?

“Well,” a voice said next to him, and Elijah turned to see Karl. “I have been trying to figure something out for something like ten years now, and the answer drops right on my lap.”

“What?” Elijah whispered back, speaking below the sound of the piano.

“When Viggo and I were in Japan together, we had far too much free sake one day, and he told me in that weird, roundabout sort of way that he sort of fell in love with someone during the shoot,” Karl shook his head, grinning. “It was mostly to shut up my whining about missing Natalie while doing promotions.”

“But that was such a long time ago.”

“Yeah,” Karl said. “I haven’t even thought about this for a long time, but somehow I just think that I’m right.”

Viggo stopped playing first, his hands—paint-stained—splaying out against the yellowing keys. Sean played the last refrain before he stopped as well, looking at the piano. His fingers danced against the wood, and he said something to Viggo that was too low for Elijah to hear. The two of them didn’t seem to have realised the silence that had fallen around them. Sean smiled brightly, and he tipped his head to the side.

Then Viggo leaned in and kissed him, right in front of their rapt audience.

“Well,” Astin said, his voice breaking the silence. He sounded amused. “This is new.”

“But hot,” Miranda said. She dug at her pockets for her phone, aiming it at Viggo and Sean. “Do it again.”

“No. Fucking hell, Miranda—” Sean broke the kiss immediately, whirling around to glare.

“Maybe if you can wrangle Cate here and kiss her, we might be able to convince them,” David murmured, sotto voce.

“You just want to see hot girls kiss, Wenham,” Craig rolled his eyes.

Elijah grinned, turning as Dom cleared his throat obnoxiously loudly.

“Ian called it first,” Dom announced. “He was sending messenger eyebrows at me from the moment he saw Viggo and Beanie walk through the door.”

“The wizard knows all,” Billy intoned right on cue next to him.

Sean sent them all a middle finger, his lips parting as if to speak.

But Ian beat him to it, lifting his eyebrows, “They were looking remarkably dishevelled when they first came in.”

“See exhibit: Messenger Eyebrows,” Dom nodded, waving an arm at Ian with a serious expression.

“Just fuck off, you wankers,” Sean was flaming red.

Viggo, as expected, was entirely unrepentant, “If you were wondering, it was in the air—mmmph!” Sean slapped a hand over his mouth.

“Thank you, Sean,” Peter said, heaving a sigh of relief. “I didn’t need to know that.”

“I did,” Fran said, grinning. “Still do, in fact.”

Before Peter—or anyone else-could reply, there was a loud bang of the door slamming close. Everyone turned, and Elijah could see a glimpse of black hair at the porch.

Orlando was missing. His wife was rubbing at her temple. As everyone blinked at the door, she walked forward and Elijah couldn’t hear what she whispered urgently to Sean and Viggo. He made to go after Orlando, but Ian’s hand was suddenly on his elbow.

“This is something you cannot help with, little hobbit,” their wizard murmured to them. Elijah looked at him for a few moments before he turned to watch Viggo slip out of the back porch. Sean patted the piano bench, and Miranda sat down.

“What’s going on?” Elijah said, feeling incredibly confused.

“Orlando is a lucky husband,” Ian said, completely enigmatic. Then he was gone, engaged in a conversation with their Miranda.

Elijah stared after him, trying to figure out what he just said and how it was any answer to his question at all. After a few minutes, he gave up and went for a drink.

***

“That’s a filthy habit, you know.”

Orlando looked up from his cigarette to watch Viggo drop down to sit next to him on the porch.

“I thought you smoke,” Orlando said, out of the lack of anything else that could be said.

“Sean and I have a pact. If I don’t start, he doesn’t start. If he doesn’t start, I don’t start. It’s working a lot better than my other tries,” Viggo paused, and then sighed. “That wasn’t the best start to a conversation I could’ve had.”

Orlando looked at him for a long moment. They had all aged. Orlando thought he had taken the brunt of it out of all of them, because he wasn’t the pretty elf anymore. It took him much longer on the makeup chair to turn into Legolas than it had thirteen years ago. That wasn’t surprising at all.

It was disappointing, though. Once, in the midst of Pirates, he had looked at Johnny and decided that he wanted to have the kind of career; he wanted people to see him as more than a pretty face. That wasn’t happening yet, and it was taking more effort than he thought it possible.

The worst thing was that he was becoming determined that it wasn’t actually worth it.

Despite all that… despite the thirteen years, Viggo looked better than he ever had, somehow. He had always had a light within him, but now it shone even brighter. He wasn’t smiling now, but he looked… content; happy, like he finally managed to reach a dream he had for a long time and was living it.

“I thought you were dating Ariadna,” he said finally, and it was nothing like what he actually wanted to say at all.

“I was,” Viggo said, and he didn’t look surprise at the sudden change of subject. “But we broke it off last year. It… didn’t work out.”

“Because of Sean?”

“Because of me,” Viggo corrected. He took a breath, and rubbed slightly at his eyes. “But also because of Sean… of what I feel for Sean.”

Orlando took a long drag of his cigarette, and then he threw it down to the ground and stubbed it out with the toe of his shoes. “You know, I had the biggest crush on you during shooting,” he saw Viggo starting to speak, and he waved a hand. “Yeah, I know you knew. Everyone knew, because I wasn’t subtle about it at all, but just hear me out.”

He lit out another cigarette, blowing out the smoke before he tipped his head up to the sky. Wellington’s stars were as familiar to him as England’s by now. “I had a mad crush on you, and I always thought that I should’ve done something about it. It’s not that I regretted not doing something, because hell, if I did I don’t know if I would’ve met Miranda and I wouldn’t have Flynn, and fucking hell, not even you’re worth that much.” He paused. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s true,” Viggo murmured. He was just looking at Orlando now, quietly listening.

“Yeah, but—at the time I thought, it’s because you don’t like men, that’s why you tolerated me throwing myself at you instead of taking up the invitation. It’s comforting to think like that, because, hell, you’re the only guy I’ve ever wanted. Then after a while I realised that it isn’t true, but… it’s always comforting as hell for me to think that you’re not attached. Or that even if you have a girl, you didn’t marry her. That even though I’ve given up a long time ago, I still have a chance, you know?”

He rubbed his hand over his mouth. Took another drag. “It’s fucking selfish as hell. I keep hoping that you’ll never find someone to settle down with just for the sake of my ego. Then just now—the way you look at Beanie just now, man. How I look at Miranda don’t even come close, and I adore my lioness. I know that I haven’t a fucking chance. I didn’t want to take that chance, but hell, it still hurts to think that I don’t have one.”

There was a long pause. “You done?” Viggo asked.

“Yeah,” Orlando said. He looked at his cigarette. He had a little less than half of it left, but he was trying to quit anyway. He stubbed it out.

“You’ve grown up a lot since the last time I saw you,” Viggo said, and he was smiling.

Orlando tried not to be too pleased with the compliment.

“I became a father,” he said, smiling. He sighed a little, looking at the stars. “It puts a lot of things into perspective. I used to be obsessed about my image and what people thought of me and hanging out with the ‘right’ kind of people. Trying to be ‘movie star’ material, you know? After a while, I realised I jumped ship all you guys, and a movie career really isn’t really worth that shit. Don’t even have projects lined up right now, and I don’t even care.”

Viggo reached over and ruffled his hair. Orlando flailed a little, feeling twenty-two again instead of the thirty-five he really was, but he didn’t stop him.

“If it helps at all,” Viggo murmured. “You never really had a chance. I still can’t decide when exactly I fell for Sean, but the first time I met him is a good bet.”

Orlando stared at him for a long moment, then threw his head back and laughed, “Fucking hell, man, you mean I was throwing myself all over you and you were already in love with Beanie?”

Viggo cracked a smile and shrugged. There was a slightly longer pause.

“You know, it’s weird,” Orlando said finally, tilting his head to the side and looking like a bird. “It does make me feel better.”

***

“I’m glad,” Ian said.

Sean blinked, looking up at the bunch of steaks that he had been grilling. He wasn’t Viggo, who would’ve been able to claim that he could make dishes from every continent if Antarctica had cuisine, but he could make a mean steak-and-potato.

Besides, it meant that only the bravest or the most determined would approach him for interrogation while he was surrounded by smoke and fire and popping fat.

“Wot?” he blinked.

“I’m glad,” Ian repeated, “that it seems that you and our dear King have come to your senses.”

Sean stared at him for a long moment. “... So how long ‘ave you known?”

“Since the two of you returned from your trip to the South Island,” Ian replied quite promptly, smiling like a Cheshire Cat. “It was obvious in the way the two of you looked at each other.”

“Just like a fuckin’ wizard,” Sean drawled, and he shook his head. “Why didn’t you tell us anythin’? Might’ve made us move our asses faster.”

“I didn’t think it was my business to tell two grown men what to do in their personal lives,” Ian replied, sounding amused. Then he hesitated. Sean took the pause to lift the steaks from the grill and drop them onto the side table.

“Do you mind if I asked an insensitive question, Sean?”

Sean stared at him. “Yer insensitive is probably the most polite I’ve ever been asked,” he said dryly. “What is it, Ian?”

“You seem very comfortable in your relationship with a man,” Ian said, speaking obliquely. But Sean had known Ian for a while, and he spoke to him on regular enough basis to understand when he was trying to be delicate.

“I don’t think of Viggo like that,” he replied, dragging a hand through his hair. “He’s Viggo; I’m happier wi’ ‘im than I’ve ever been wi’ anyone else. It ain’t meant that I’m gay—no offence, Ian—and I don’t even think it means I’m bi or anythin’ like that. He’s just… this big exception, you know?” He paused. “’ell, I haven’t even stopped lookin’ at women, though I’ve stopped wantin’ ta go after ‘em.”

Ian smiled, reaching out to squeeze Sean on the shoulder. “Good, so-”

“If yer next words is ta try ta get me ta join Stonewall, Ian, I’ll force you ta eat a steak.”

***

“So,” Sean said when he and Viggo finally had a moment to themselves, “do I ‘ave ta beat off beautiful, nubile young men for you?”

They were sitting out on the porch, their pockets emptied with the insides lolling out like tongues. Stashed cigarettes were thrown into the trash. Everyone was either crashed out on sleeping bags on the floor or they had gone home or back to a hotel—Sean and Viggo were the only ones awake.

Viggo leaned against Sean’s shoulder, taking in a long breath of his warm scent. “Maybe. What would you do?”

“I’ll tell ‘em exactly what it’s like ta live with you,” Sean said, looking at him fondly. “Paint footprints on the floor, you forgettin’ ta eat nine times outta ten, ‘aving ta deal with your strange and mildly terrifying ex-wife, yer ‘abit of buyin’ very strange things for me girls, yer nasty tendency o’ wakin’ up in the middle of the night ta paint or write and leavin’ the bed cold, carryin’ yer camera everywhere and leavin’ evidence o’ our depravity wherever people could find it… I can go on.”

“I should be thankful that you’re patient enough to put up with me, then,” Viggo said, smiling. One benefit of not smoking was the ability to taste each other better. To smell each other better.

“Nah,” Sean said, cupping the back of Viggo’s head and drawing him even closer as their lips parted. “I’m just used ta you.”

It was a bright clear night full of stars, but there were nothing brighter than Sean’s eyes.