"Do me a favor and flip through that stack of prints. I need a few more for the magazine and I can't decide." Viggo spoke from the sink, his back to Sean.
Seean picked up the pile nearest him and sifted through them. What he now recognized as America's Badlands scrolled by-this wasn't the right pile; Viggo was working on a piece about the mills and millworkers. Sean reached for the next pile even as he turned to the following Badlands photo. Only it wasn't the Badlands. The next shot was of a slightly younger Viggo, the focus a bit off, his edges blurred-no, their edges blurred. Because in the picture Viggo was kissing someone. His hand framed the other's jaw, a fringe of hair covering the other's eyes. Sean stared a moment, then glanced up guiltily.
But Viggo's back was still to him, his head obscured by the open icebox door.
"I don't need any ice," Sean said, stealing one last glance at the photo before sliding it into his back pocket. He wasn't sure why he wanted to keep it -- only for a little while, until he figured out why he wanted to look at it at all - but he didn't want to ask Viggo about it just yet.
"You won't want any ice. But you do need it." Viggo wrapped a palm-sized chunk in a towel and turned back to Sean. "Now tilt your head up."
Sean sighed and leaned back, offering up his blackened and swollen left eye to Viggo's care. It wasn't particularly impressive, as black eyes go. The punch hadn't been thrown well at all and it was only because Sean hadn't thought his opponent would even try from that angle that the hit had landed. He'd won last night's bout easily, sustaining only that black eye, but Viggo fussed over it. Actually, this morning he'd threatened to turn him out hard and alone until the swelling went down of its own accord if he wouldn't consent to the ice.
Viggo gently held the wrapped ice over Sean's eye while he traced the outline of Sean's several scars with a fingertip.
"It's not that bad, Vig," Sean mumbled through the long edge of the towel.
"Shut up. I'm being tender." Viggo smoothed a few stray hairs behind Sean's ear, then bent to deliver a light lick along its sensitive curve.
"You weren't worried about being tender right after it happened." Sean didn't know why he was grousing; the ice felt good, cool against the bruise, and each time Viggo had iced one of his boxing injuries before, they'd ended up with another unexpected and devious use for ice.
Viggo's lips closed around the thin gold hoop in Sean's ear, sucking gently. He murmured, "Right after it happened, we went for a beer and you dragged me into the bogs and demanded I fuck you over the sink." He swung his leg over Sean's lap and straddled him. "I didn't think that was really an invitation for tender." He bent his head to bite softly at the side of Sean's neck.
Sean wrapped his arms around Viggo's back, remembered the cold press of ceramic against his thighs, the fast burn of Viggo's fingers pressing in. He let out an unsteady breath as Viggo inched forward on his lap. Almost.
"No, you're right. That wasn't me asking for tender." But was this? Now? Did he want it to be? He'd nearly decided that yes, it was, like the picture hidden in his pocket, when Viggo's small white teeth closed a little harder on the side of his neck, scraping along his Adam's apple. Maybe later.
Sean slid a hand up Viggo's back to tangle in his strawberry blond hair and pulled Viggo's mouth away from his neck.
"What?" Mischief sparkled in Viggo's eyes.
"We're done with the ice." Sean eased Viggo's hand and the towel-wrapped ice away from his eye before pressing his mouth to Viggo's. They kissed, all wrestling tongues and clutching hands until Viggo finally pulled away.
"Are you sure we're done with the ice?"
"We are unless you want to get fucked with it this time." Sean slipped his hand into the back of Viggo's jeans, again wondering if he'd trade the way the denim hugged the perfect easy curve of Viggo's arse for the accessibility of looser trousers. Just getting Viggo out of these arse-hugging jeans faster was the better solution, he decided, and stood up, keeping Viggo's legs around his waist and his torso pressed close.
"Jesus!" Viggo wrapped his arms tighter around Sean and laughed into his neck until Sean dropped him onto the mattress in their bedroom. They shed their clothing as quickly as possible. Sean even managed to throw his into the corner that had become his; he'd moved in a week after that first night, a few days after Viggo had photographed him. And through there wasn't much in the tiny flat to signify Sean's presence at all, he spent the next hour showing Viggo exactly how present he was.
* * *
"I'm going to trip the photos off at the post and stop by to see if my developing solution has come in. Need anything while I'm out?" Viggo was gingerly pulling up his trousers, a huge grin on his face as he stood slowly. "Can I bring home more ice?"
Sean smiled and landed a quick slap on Viggo's arse. "Go right ahead. And then I can get you back for last time." He still wasn't sure how one body part could be so hot and so mind-numbingly cold at the same time. He fastened the buttons on his own trousers.
"Maybe next time." Viggo kissed him, nipping playfully at Sean's lips.
"Get on with you." Sean shoved him toward the door. He put his hands in his back pockets and leaned into the wall, while Viggo shuffled through the photos on the table one last time.
"Take the one where the camera's looking through the gate at The Lane," Sean said.
Viggo rummaged in the appropriate stack. "I was thinking about that one, too. So that one," he pulled it from the pile, "and now two more . . ."
Sean let him sift in silence, his fingertips ghosting over the slick photo paper in his pocket. He didn't want Viggo to go, but he wanted time to think. To know why he'd even picked up the picture in the first place.
So, when Viggo left, Sean kissed him, carefully and softly, like the first night, when they'd finally kissed. And Viggo let him, not darting out his tongue to lick at Sean's lips nor biting at Sean's mouth as he usually did. He looked a bit strangely at Sean when he left, but he said nothing, only brushed the hair back from Sean's puffy eye and left.
Sean waited until he heard the stairwell door close, then lay down on the mattress again, put the picture on the pillow in front of him, and stared.
It wasn't jealousy. At least, not the jealousy of Viggo having kissed someone else. They'd both had other lovers - in truth, they'd both rather whored around - and if the looks Viggo and Dave had been throwing each other and him were any indication, they might do a bit more slagging about together. That he'd negotiate later. Now he still wasn't sure what about the blurry, generally uninformative photo caught him so.
He got up, took a beer from the pantry, and looked harder. The photo wasn't particularly artistically interesting. Sean didn't know much about art, but he knew what he liked and why he liked it, and this had none of the same qualities as those things. No sharp play of light and dark, no quick movement across the paper. Even aesthetically, as a picture of the man he always wanted, it wasn't very good. The focus, or lack thereof, obscured the dimpled chin and blurred the delicious scar above his lip, and his eyes were closed. But the curve of his hand around the other's cheek - Sean couldn't even tell if it was a man or woman - it didn't matter - held something. Something Sean wanted to show to or give to Viggo. He took a long drink of his beer, still looking at, through, the photo. It was a gift he didn't know if Viggo would accept, or if Sean could even give. Himself. Softly. Without a struggle, even in play. He put the beer on the floor, folded his arms, rested his chin on his hands, and looked harder at the photo.
Summary: Sean wants to give something he's not sure he can. Part of the Vincent Black Lightning AU
Rated: NC-17
Categories: Actor RPS Pairing: None
Warnings: NoneChallenges:
Series: Another PhotographChapters: 2 Completed: Yes
Word count: 4300 Read: 2187
Published: 16 Aug 2009 Updated: 16 Aug 2009