When Sean tries to recall the time he first fell in love with Viggo, he realizes that he can't.
He remembers the first time they kissed, (back in New Zealand by the beach), the first time they made love, (after they filmed Boromir's death scene, quite aptly in Viggo's trailer)... but he can't remember when he first fell in love with him.
So instead of answering he looks at his lover's expectant face and pauses, pasting a grin and cracks a joke. Hopes that Viggo won't notice the flicker of uncertainty in his eyes, knows that he does.
A look passes between them-- one that says 'we'll talk about this later'-- and then they turn back to Ian and his latest flame.
"Getting old," says Ian at length, and Sean nods amiably.
Viggo doesn't laugh.
***
When they get home Viggo kisses him-- long and hard-- pinned against the door of the bedroom.
"What was that all about?" Sean asks breathlessly, and his lover shakes his head.
"You forgot, didn't you?"
And even as he tries to reply Viggo is speaking again, arms going around him more gently than he is accustomed to.
"When I first stepped off the plane," the other whispers, pulling him close. "When we were first introduced. When they kicked the Townsend boy off the set. When we first looked at each other...'
'*That's* when," he finishes with the air of someone who's said it a million times before.
The words almost-echo in Sean's mind, and he smiles. "I remember," he says.
But he doesn't.
***
Later, when the night air is still and smooth, Sean lies asleep in Viggo's arms. His left leg is slung over Viggo's right, the weight heavy and comforting in the darkness.
Viggo looks at the man he loves, looks at the wax blonde hair shining dully in the moonlight. He should sleep now, but he can't. There is a niggling in the back of his mind, a small worried part of him that won't let him fade into slumber just yet.
It began as a joke after all, as most things with couples do. Playful banter leading to a memorized response, as second nature to them as reciting their names.
"So when did you first fall in love?" That was Elijah who first asked, and the words previously batted about only in private came easily out.
"When Viggo first stepped off the plane," Sean replied, grinning.
"When we were first introduced," puts in Viggo, casually slinging an arm around him. "When they kicked the Townsend boy off the set."
"When we first looked at each other..."
And Elijah makes gagging noises, but there is a genuine affection in his eyes as he laughs. "That was the most sentimental bunch've BS I've ever heard," he hiccupped.
"Yeah," Sean had said, and Viggo felt like the luckiest man on earth.
But now he's looking at Sean asleep in his arms, and he loves him so fucking much it hurts. The worry grows in his chest until his body hurts just thinking about it, fear gripping his heart.
We're getting old, he tells himself. He's got a lot on his mind.
But deep down, Viggo knows. Sean wouldn't have forgotten-- he doesn't forget things like that.
He looks at Sean again, sleeping in his arms as peacefully as he ever had.
"I love you," he whispers, and tightens his grip.
He doesn't fall asleep that night.
***
Two weeks later, Viggo has almost forgotton about the incident. Their lives have been peacefully absent of anything extraordinary, and he is lulled back into the safe haven that he has come to expect from loving Sean.
But then Viggo goes to the kitchen one morning and he finds his lover laying still on the floor, a shattered mug nearby.
Viggo's hands are shaking by the time the ambulance arrives, his fingers barely able to grab his keys from the table. He rides with Sean to the hospital, holding his hand and watching the paramedics try to rouse him.
"He's alive," one informs Viggo briskly, but the news brings little joy.
Sean is pale and his eyes aren't open and Viggo can't see how blue they are. Needles go in and out of his arm and suddenly they're at the hospital, people rushing about. Doctors and nurses and orderlies, telling him to stay outside, to sit down, to be quiet, be calm.
A nurse comes by shortly to give him a chart to sign, and Viggo does so without thinking. He thinks he should call someone--John is in the area--but before he can stand up to do so eight hours have passed and a doctor is standing in front of him.
"He's awake," he says.
"I want to see him," Viggo says immediately, but the doctor puts a hand on his arm and says words that Viggo doesn't want to hear. So he pushes the doctor out of the way and something snaps under his fingers and he goes to Sean's room unmolested.
Sean is sitting up in a white hospital gown with little squares on it, drinking juice from a cup. Viggo takes the cup away and holds him tightly, says "I'm taking you home" and Sean nods.
He doesn't want to be here right now, not really, and Viggo helps him into his clothes and into a cab and into their house.
Sean insists on watching the television before going to bed, and when they make love it is with a desperation that they'd never had before.
"It could be worse," whispers Sean before he drifts of, and Viggo doesn't reply. Because in his mind he thinks *there is nothing worse*, but he doesn't want to upset Sean.
He makes sure Sean is sleeping before going downstairs for water, but when he reaches the kitchen the broken mug is still there, and the tea has seeped under the counter.
Viggo mops it up, watching the brown liquid seep into the dirty rag in his hand.
Presently, he begins to cry.
***
Orlando and Dom visit a few months later, flying in from a shoot in Dublin. Everyone else has come by earlier, dropped off flowers and food or their company. Viggo is usually grateful for visitors, but as he watches the two subtley hold hands, something inside him flares.
He breaks a vase when he tries to put their flowers in water, snaps at Dom when he tries to help. Orlando intercedes on his lover's behalf, but Viggo's voice is rising, angry. He doesn't even know what he's saying, doesn't even know if he's making any sense.
Sean comes in to find Viggo railing furiously at the two, the color high in his cheeks. He puts a hand on his lover's arm, trying to quiet him, but Viggo turns on him and starts screaming, spittle flying from his mouth.
Sean can't even understand what he's saying, barely able to pick out the words 'why' 'bastard' and more profanity. Viggo pushes him away when he tries to embrace him and Sean hits the counter and slides down.
Dom tries to help him up, but suddenly a weeping, shivering Viggo is there, trembling in Sean's lap and saying 'I'm sorry' over and over again. Sean holds him, strokes his soft brown hair and tells him that he loves him.
"It's okay," he says tiredly to Orlando. "But you'd better go."
The two let themselves out, mumbling apologies and picking up the broken pieces of vase as they go.
Sean looks at Viggo and says "I'm sorry, love."
And Viggo buries his face in Sean's chest. "It could've been worse."
"But nothing's really worse than brain cancer, is there?" Sean half-smiles, and Viggo shakes and holds him tighter.
They go back to bed some time later, and when they make love it is soft and gentle, both trying to preserve the soap bubble of hope that is left them.
***
Months pass in a blur.
The machines come into their house first, needles hooking up and into his vein, monitoring Sean's heart, his air, his *life*.
Viggo doesn't want a nurse, but eventually he realizes he cannot do it alone. Sean is weak now, so weak that he has trouble getting up. He checks the dosages and the little green lights on the screens, listening to the tick-tick-tick of Sean's heart.
He falls asleep beside him frequently, often forgetting to eat. Finally Sean has to insist they hire a professional 'just so he can see someone else's face for a change'. And Viggo agrees, because he sees in Sean's eyes that he's worried about him. Viggo might think it ironic that Sean is lying in bed dying but can still find the time to worry about him, but he doesn't say anything.
Instead he hires a nurse to help out, and she comes in during the mornings and stays until the afternoon.
Another handful of months pass and Sean reaches critical.
They move him into the hospital, but when the doctor asks if they want to try operating, Sean rasps no. Viggo is stricken, angry. He ignores when Sean tries to explain, he pulls away when Sean reaches for his hand.
"It might give you a few more months," Viggo says bitingly, but Sean shrugs.
"A few more months of what?" And he gestures around them, gestures to the room and the IV and the damned green hue of the hospital walls.
And Viggo leaves the room, goes to the bathroom across the hall and is sick. He wretches pain and misery and longing into the pristine white bowl, fingers spasming against the porcelain.
The tiles of the stall are cool against his cheek.
When Viggo goes back to Sean's room later, he takes him into his arms without a word.
Sean holds him back tightly, squeezing. "I'll do whatever you want, Vig," he whispers. "Whatever it takes to be with you."
***
Viggo waits in the room, feels the walls closing in and shuts his eyes tight. Sean has gone for preliminary tests in preparation for the procedure, and Viggo wonders if he has done the right thing.
There is an eighty percent chance in this case, said the doctors. Practically a sure thing.
But now that Viggo is alone, he wonders if that eighty percent is really worth gambling the twenty that Sean wouldn't be ok. That he would worsen instead of have more time.
Viggo buries his face in the grey robe that Sean has just shrugged out of, inhaling his lover's scent. It smells of musk and spice and earth, and Viggo knows that he has just a few more months of this, of having Sean near him.
The fear is tangible, real-- he can taste it on his tongue. Bitter and salty and metallic.
And for the first time in nearly a decade, Viggo bows his head and prays.
***
The lump they take out of Sean's head looks like a mushroom, and after a few suggestions and under-the-table flirting, Viggo manages to bring it home in a glass jar.
He doesn't show it to Sean; he keeps it in his drawer and takes it out and looks at it sometimes, telling himself that this is the enemy. This is the bastard that is taking Sean away from him.
He holds the jar very tightly then, gripping it so hard his knuckles turn white and the bones stick out in sharp relief. He wants to smash it against the wall, hurt it, destroy it-- kill it like it's killing Sean.
But he doesn't.
Because he knows that after he does that, he won't have anything left to blame. Won't be able to stare at it, gripping the cool glass in his hand and wishing he could take his old Aragorn sword over the mantle and just smash it. Just smash it and have it dead and gone.
One day, he tells himself, he'll be able to do it. Just smash it and throw it out. Leave it behind him forever.
One day.
***
The wind is very cold on the night that Sean dies.
It stings and bites at Viggo's cheeks, stirring flakes of snow from the driveway. He just needed to step outside for a little, get some air. They'd moved back in the house shortly after the operation, back with the nurse and the machines and the smell of medicine and pain killers in the sterile air.
Viggo can't stand it.
So every now and then he steps outside of the house, watches his breath turn to vapor and smoke out into the open night.
And it is on one such night that his knees go weak and he drops into the drift, his legs making vague impressions in the snow. He *knows* then, just like that, and he's running up the steps and throwing open the front door, crashing into the nurse who has just come down to get him.
He pushes her aside-- unnecessarily rough-- and takes the steps two at a time.
Sean is barely breathing by the time he gets there, and Viggo holds him close, presses a kiss into his forhead and says 'don't leave me'.
But Sean smiles, and Viggo feels a faint squeeze back. "Waited for you," he whispers.
And then Viggo begins to cry without knowing he is doing so, tears beginning to wet his stubbled cheeks. "I love you Sean," he says. "I fell in love with you when I first stepped off the plane, and we were first introduceda33;'
"When they kicked the Townsend boy off the set," he continues, voice breaking. "When we first looked at each other..."
And then Viggo can't talk anymore because his throat has closed up, so he settles for just holding Sean so tightly it must have hurt him, but he doesn't complain.
"I know," whispers Sean.
And then the light is gone from his eyes, the faint pressure slackening and going limp.
Viggo holds him tight, closes his eyes and rocks Sean's body lightly, trying not to feel the pain radiating from his chest in sickening haste.
He doesn't let go.
***
They bury him on a Tuesday.
Viggo watches as they put him into the ground and scatter roses along the coffin lid, each of their friends saying goodbye in their own way.
Elijah cries openly, Sean and Billy with their arms around him on either side. Ian discreetly wipes at his eyes with an elegant red kerchief, John sings a lovely hymn. His voice is deep and rich and beautiful, and everyone who was not yet crying moved to tears.
The sun comes out as Viggo walks back to the car, and Orli drives with Dom riding shot gun.
It's a warm day so they decide to open the windows instead of the heat, and riding with the wind in his hair makes Viggo feel less pain.
"Nice day," remarks Dom, casting a glance in Orlando's direction.
"No," says Viggo, watching the autumn leaves flutter and flip about outside, catching one in his mind and holding its memory. It is orange and yellow with faint strains of green in the center, a leaf on its endless cycle to becoming earth.
Viggo smiles.
"But it will be."
Summary: Holding on to happiness is like trying to catch summer in your hands. Autumn always follows.
Rated: R
Categories: Actor RPS Pairing: Sean/Viggo
Warnings: NoneChallenges:
Series: NoneChapters: 1 Completed: Yes
Word count: 2539 Read: 779
Published: 16 Aug 2009 Updated: 16 Aug 2009