I can see him through the window. He’s scrubbing down the inside of the pool with one of those long, unwieldy brushes that fights back. His single-minded determination -- his frown and his rumpled brow -- makes me smile.
He is almost always focused and intense. Aware in a way that reminds me of how animals seem to think – sensing and evaluating everything around and knowing at once what is safe and normal and what is not.
Rarely during his waking hours is he not involved in purposed motion of some sort.
In reality, we are about as different as we can possibly be.
I can disappear into my head for days at a time, barely aware of my surroundings at all. Drifting is part of who I am. I meander in my brain until I reach a conclusion. Or I don’t reach a conclusion. Either way, I’m satisfied that I have mulled something over to whatever end. I often have no goal other than seeing where I end up without a road map.
Sean, on the other hand, claws into the world with a fierce energy, moving, thinking, always watching. He is not overly suspicious or worried; just watchful in a mix of curiosity and protectiveness that I am not sure I’ve ever encountered before.
He looks always for the best but I imagine he is also prepared for the worst.
He is certain in his loves and happy in his passions.
And somehow, despite our differences, I felt like we were finding our other halves when we finally figured this out and became us.
I still do.
When and if I let myself imagine us being apart again – being only half of myself again – the pain is almost more than I can bear.
And yet, I’ve been so stupid, so careless with his heart. And with mine.
I left him once. Over something meaningless and easily forgotten. Some panic or rebellion against something I couldn’t name.
It was my choice. A shattering, numbing choice that came about out of fear. Originated in sadness and hurt and selfishness rooted in the past both recent and long ago and all of the decisions -- mine and others' -- forever regretted.
I didn’t take ownership at the time. I refused to stop and hear my heart, not trusting anything it would have been able to tell me.
I was drifting again, only this time my drifting wasn’t all about me.
This time I tore us both with my lack of care.
For once, Sean had forgotten to watch and to guard -- or perhaps had chosen to lay those habits aside -- and he was unable to protect himself against what I had done.
I’ve never felt so much grief and loss. Guilt and the horror of what I had done consumed me and shamed me and cut into me with each new breath.
For the longest time, I couldn't bear to try and make it right. Instead I ran away like a child. I ran to where my heart has always been, where things have always been safe. I ran to hide in Denmark.
Once there, I soon realized that my heart – my true heart – could no longer be found there. Not in the quiet of the countryside nor the warmth of my aunt’s house.
My heart was -- is -- here, in Sean’s heart. In his hands. Now and always.
I came home to him and asked him to understand and to forgive when I deserved neither.
I asked him to let me close again. And he did.
He offered all of it again in a way that honors and humbles me.
He gave me back the comfort of side-by-side sleep. Of tea and talk. Arguments and laughter about nothing and everything. Comfortable silence and mad and breathless passion.
Sean is a force. He is an energy unlike that of most people around him. He is what a spirit from another time should be if ghost tales are true. He is noble and proud and determined and he is shamelessly masculine: his frame tall and solid, graceful strength inherent in every movement, and always there is the intensity of those to-the-marrow green eyes.
And at the end of it all, he is kind and loving. And forgiving.
I sit here now, thankful and overwhelmed as I watch him.
I didn’t know how to be in a relationship then. And despite his experiences, I think that he did. He tells me he just never had the right partner before and I will do whatever it takes to live up to the gift of that phrase.
I’ve often taken the coward’s way and withdrawn without a fight. Without even a real goodbye until love or like or lust -- whatever we’d had – had tapered off into nothing. And what pain is there in trimming away an already dead flower?
But Sean has taught me what it is to be equal. Simply equal. Sometimes the leader and sometimes the follower. I have not fallen back into that long habit of assuming a role in some unplanned response to another. I am not a husband, not a madman, not a handsome man nor an odd one.
I am just me.
And whatever that means tomorrow is as okay as whatever I am today. Or was yesterday. And we’ll change and shift to find our balance over the long drift of days before us.
Alongside the pool, he is finally completing his work. He takes a second of rest just to drag an arm across his forehead to stop the sweat that has beaded on his skin.
I think that he doesn’t see me but he may sense that he is being watched. There is a hint of a smile as he goes back to what he was doing, rushing now and making a somewhat cursory job of that last yard or so of tile before he has closed the loop around the whole pool.
And then he drops the brush there in the strokes of sunlight flanking the blue water, puts his hands on his hips and looks down for a long, still moment. When he looks up again, he looks all the way up, his head tilted back and droplets of sweat dawdling their way down his chest into the faint dampness of the top edge of his shorts. He stands there reveling in the sun that warms his handsome face.
When he looks down again he is already moving, a soft smile on his face that grows a little wider, a little wilder, as he comes in through the open doorway into the kitchen.
I smile back. Can’t not.
And then he’s right in front of me, his warm, muscled arms braced against the cold and indifferent arms of the metal chair, and he is kissing me, offering me a taste of heat and saltiness and Sean.
He pulls back suddenly, smiling ruefully.
“Sorry, love,” he murmurs, “I’m a mess. All dirty and sweaty and such.”
I stand and push myself into a hug, breathing in the scent of his neck, burrowing into the wetness of his hair, kissing his skin as I feel sudden thankful tears. I love that my clean, dry body is merging with his damp and tired one.
“What’s this?” he laughs, pulling his upper body away to look into my face. His grin is sparkling and I can’t help but smile back, chuckling softly with just the joy and comfort of the embrace
“Nothing,” I say.
Green eyes don’t let me slide away quite so easily.
“Nothing? Ah. A good nothing or a bad nothing, Viggo?”
The bite of his accent around the last syllable of my name broadens my smile and he moves quickly to cover my lips with his, moaning softly as his tongue strokes over mine.
My hands dip into the dampness of his waistband, pushing his shorts down and away until I feel only his skin. It warms me even through the clothes I still wear.
Sean warms me.
And holds my heart.
And we will cradle each other forever in the warmth of our imperfect perfection.
Summary: Sean is working and Vigo is watching.
Rated: PG
Categories: Actor RPS Pairing: Sean/Viggo
Warnings: NoneChallenges:
Series: NoneChapters: 1 Completed: Yes
Word count: 1388 Read: 729
Published: 16 Aug 2009 Updated: 16 Aug 2009