Viggo's first thought when he wakes is *Sean.* Not because he's been dreaming, nor thinking of Sean before he fell sleep, but because he is curled up against a warm, firm body clad in a white t-shirt, and the warm, firm body smells like Sean. Sean is the only person Viggo knows who always smells as though he's just got out of the shower.
His one open eye--the other is pressed against Sean's chest--surveys the landscape: Sean's chest. Most satisfactory. Daylight reflecting off the white t-shirt. Blue blanket drawn up part way. Nightstand at the edge of his own bed. Clock reading 2:13 p.m. Interesting. What happened to last night? One little brown prescription bottle... Viggo squints his one eye at the distance and the small, bold print... for an anti-inflammatory. Two prescriptions for painkillers. One of those little brown bottles of pills, Viggo thinks, might explain certain fuzzy things going on in his head. There are two glasses partially filled with water.
Viggo recalls his brief incarceration in the hospital mostly as a blur. Mostly, in fact, as the sound of his own voice ranting loudly that he wants to fucking go home. He remembers the sharp sound of a hobbit laughing at him. He'll have to pin down the memory in order to take proper steps.
The warm chest beneath Viggo's ear vibrates gently as Sean's voice rumbles, "So, you're awake, then."
Viggo wriggles a bit and shifts so that he can peer up at Sean, who beams softly down at him from the head of Viggo's bed.
Vig clears his throat. "That I am. Tell me the laughing hobbit's name."
Sean blinks. "What's that?"
"One of the hobbits was laughing at me in the hospital, but I can't remember which one. I plan to hunt the little shit down and exact some sort of horrible revenge."
Sean chuckles, "Ambitious for a bloke who likely doesn't know what day it is. Anyhow, once they found out you'd survive they were all laughing at you."
"Blast," Viggo mutters. "Pummeling each of them in turn is going to take a while."
"How's the head?"
"Could go for a cigarette."
"Not what I asked you, and absolutely not in bed."
Viggo mutters grumpily and makes himself more comfortable. "Head's pretty okay. Shoulder aches a bit. Ribs hurt. Left wrist is stiff... yeah that about covers it." He yawns hugely. "Mostly I'm just tired. You keep doing that all afternoon though, and I won't complain at all."
"Doing what? Oh." Sean's fingers slip through the ends of Viggo's forelock and start over again slowly from the back. "Did this a lot while you were still out of things, in hospital. Made me feel better, somehow."
He smiles at something then, and Viggo demands contentedly, "What?"
"Nurse come in while I were in your bed that first night." He grins past the top of Viggo's head. "What a look she gave me! Like I were unsanitary! But I let her know I weren't movin'."
Viggo reaches across Sean and lightly strokes his arm. "You always say 'were' instead of 'was' when you get worked up."
Sean is quiet for a moment. "Aye. True enough."
"And what exactly were you doing in my hospital bed with me?" Viggo teases, "Molesting me in my infirmity?"
Sean laughs, and Viggo enjoys the solid jump of his belly, the roll of the sound of him under Viggo's ear, until Sean says solemnly, "Feared I might lose you, there for a bit."
"Nah, not me. I'm the king. Hey--" He glares at Sean, who has just snorted sharply, and for the first time Viggo notices the gauze taped to Sean's forehead, just at his hairline. Vig sits up properly, arranging his legs on the mattress, and reaches out to gingerly touch the white bandage. Sean's left cheek is checkered with small abrasions scabbing over. "You got hurt. Jesus, I didn't even know."
"No worries," Sean assures him, "I've a hard head. Sheffield steel!"
Viggo shoves at his chest. "Knucklehead's more like it! This is what the other painkillers are for?"
Sean points behind Viggo, to where a cocoon of bandages encases Sean's left knee. That the palm of Sean's hand is scraped red, and a long, darkening abrasion runs from his wrist to his elbow does not escape Viggo's notice.
"Shit, you got beat up worse than I did! How come I was the one in the hospital?"
Sean snorts again. Viggo wonders if it's a British thing. "'Cause you had a dislocated shoulder, bruised ribs and a concussion taking eight stitches, that's why. They weren't sure if you hadn't snapped your neck, in fact." Sean points to his own head wound. "Three stitches is all this is." He smiles at Viggo a bit sheepishly. "Good thing you nagged me into wearing me seatbelt when I didn't wanna. That," he says, pointing to his abused knee, "is from the fuckin' ravine."
"You fell into a ravine? What ravine?" Viggo's eyebrows leap upward as he remembers. "You mean that cliff beside the road we were on?"
"Aye, where your mobile landed. At the bottom, naturally."
"So you what, jumped down after it? Jesus, Sean!"
"I'd've tossed in a hobbit after the thing, but we were fresh out."
"Dammit, don't be snarky," Viggo barks, panicking for no sensible reason, "You could've broken your stupid neck!"
"Sorry, Sir. Next time I'll walk the eleven or so miles back to civilisation and--"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." Viggo flops down repentantly onto Sean's chest again, winces at his own bruises. "You startled me. Next thing I know, you'll be bungee-jumping with Elfboy."
"Oh sure, and sky-diving in gingham."
Viggo smirks into Sean's sternum, and they lie that way for a little time, Sean threading his fingers through Viggo's hair again. Finally Sean ventures hesitantly, "Vig... um, I need to tell you summat."
"Mmmm?"
"When you were lying there, when we crashed, I got to thinking pretty hard pretty quick, and then at the hospital, I mean, I didn't have much to do but think and watch you sleep, and...." Sean takes a deep breath. "Hell. Somewhere between you bleedin' all over New Zealand and Orli and the other children helping me drag you in here, I come to the conclusion that I've been a rare idiot."
Viggo frowns into the after-shower smell of Sean's chest. "How do you figure that?"
Sean sighs. "The way I reacted to you and me. I've been so scared of well, you know, us, and everything I guess, and it were just stupid."
"I suppose I did notice a certain reticence." Viggo smiles into the soft white jersey. He can hear Sean's heartbeat quickening.
"Come on, you know what I've been like." Sean searches for a starting point. "See, you and I, we were friends, and it were great. Then all of a sudden-like we were lovers, and… it's peculiar now that I think on it, finding meself fancyin' a bloke in *that* way. It were a bit of a surprise, I can tell you, but it didn't bother me half as much as I suppose it ought to have, I mean considerin'."
Viggo laughs quietly. He can't help it, and Sean either doesn't notice or doesn't mind.
Sean scrubs at his eyes, runs his hand over his face. "Since that night we first were together... Vig, it felt so good, but Christ, I were suddenly fuckin' terrified. Ever since I started thinking of you as more than just a mate... well…" Viggo runs a reassuring hand up Sean's bicep, rubs at the curve of his shoulder.
Sean's hand curves over the back of Viggo's head, long fingers dabbling in the dark sandy hair. Viggo thinks he could stay just like this for an awfully long time. He says nothing, merely listens carefully to Sean sorting things through, though Viggo feels a bit of an imposter now, recalling his own fears.
There is a thoughtful silence until Sean makes a frustrated noise. "Oh, fuck, I dunno... These past few months it's as though I couldn't take hold and put up a fair fight. If I can look a trouble in the eyes, get my fists into it, I can handle just about anything I hope, but for the longest time I've felt like I couldn't get any leverage."
"You've been going through a lot lately, Sean," Viggo reminds him gently. "The sort of thing that could kick hell out of anybody's confidence."
"Aye. After three goes you'd think saying goodbye to a relationship would be easier, but it's not. Thing is, they all three started out feeling so right. So right at first, and then so wrong, and I kept thinkin' on that, and suddenly I had no strength in me, Vig. Frightened me, that did."
"You stopped believing, I think," Viggo tells him. "You reached a point where you simply could not believe anymore." The very thought of this makes Viggo want to hold him tighter, so he does.
"Yeah," Sean agrees softly. "All my life I've just plunged into things, dealt with the consequences as they came, but this time, once you and I got started it seemed the ground just went right out from under me. I wanted so badly to be there for you, to be there with you, but at the same time the whole situation just seemed impossible. Made meself fuckin' crazy second-guessin'."
Sean lightly traces the curve of Viggo's ear, admitting sadly, "There never are any guarantees, are there. That's just the way of it."
Viggo nods and admits, "You weren't the only one scared out of your skull, boy-o."
"'Boy-o?'" Sean giggles, which Viggo finds purely adorable. "I never saw your fear, Vig. How do you hide something like that?"
Viggo very gently touches the long red scrape along Sean's forearm. "Denial. Stout denial. Don't laugh, it works. Well, in daylight it works, nighttime, not so much. I was in over my head, and I knew it, but there was no backing out of it, or we'd never be able to look each other in the eye again, and I couldn't have lived with that, Sean." His fingers tentatively lace with Sean's, feeling the roughness of the hardening scabs on Sean's palm. "But listen, you're here now. You never ran. You stuck it out." He takes a deep breath. "I suppose it's all mostly my fault, really."
Sean's eyebrows waggle a bit. "Your fault?"
Viggo wriggles northward, feeling the seatbelt bruises across his stomach protest a bit. He kisses the warm skin behind Sean's ear. "Sean, all you needed was a little time, which I did not give you. Ian warned me, told me to leave you be. I didn't. Couldn't keep my greedy hands off of you, quite frankly. Massive fuck-up on my part, for which I apologize. My lust apologizes, particularly. Fortunately, there's been a terrifying car wreck, which seems to have jolted our little corner of an imperfect universe back into some sort of reasonable alignment. You were brilliant that night, Sean. I mean it. I wish I'd been conscious enough to see it." Viggo kisses Sean's neck again. "And if I haven't said it before, I thank you."
"So the wreck was your fault," Sean sums contemplatively.
"The wreck? Excuse me?"
"There I was, terrified you were expirin' in the night out there, and went flingin' meself into a dark canyon. Might've been dismembered by wallabies, or devoured by rabid koalas, and here it was you all along, muckin' about with Fate, or screwin' up the Space-time Continuum, when Ian had *told you* no touching, and we ended up in a bloody auto accident!"
Viggo squeaks indignantly, "Drunk driver, as I recall!" He clears his throat, retrieving his manly voice. "And there are no wild koalas in--"
"You should be severely punished, that's what."
"I--wait." Viggo pushes himself up to peer down at Sean. Something sparkly in the green eyes makes him flush and swallow hard. "My fault. Absolutely. Um... what sort of punishment--oop!"
Sean shoves upward and rolls them over, beaming wickedly down at Viggo as only Sean can. "Might start with a really nasty beating with a baton."
He kisses Vig lightly, and Vig asks against his lips, "What sort of baton? Will I be black and blue?"
"Mmm, in certain places you might be, at that."
"Will I beg for mercy?"
"I expect so."
"Will you grant it?"
"Unlikely."
Viggo growls, feeling his heart speed up happily. "You'll never take me alive, lawman!"
Sean runs a quick, rough hand down the front of Viggo's shirt, tearing it open, buttons flying every direction. "Bet I will!"
Viggo laughs, "Hey, that was a good--okay, it was a crap shirt, but--"
Sean cuts him off with fierce kisses that push him deep into the pillows. The blue blanket and its friends shuffle off the bed onto the floor.
"Oh, that was terrible," Viggo gasps at last, struggling up for air.
"Hated that, did you? I warn you, I can be cruel."
"Go ahead, do your worst, I can take it! I'll never rat on my friends!"
"I have ways of making you talk!"
"Lord, I hope so…"
Sean scooches down and licks roughly at Viggo's belly button, making rude slurping noises.
"…oooff, and there's one of 'em… Say, I'm naked, how did that happen?"
Sean tosses the mangled bundle that is Viggo's paint-stained sweat pants into a corner and demands nastily, "Who nicked my pint Friday last?"
"I don't know--ack, it was Dom!"
Sean's hand pauses just far enough above a very important portion of Viggo's anatomy to be genuinely frustrating. "Really? You were my lead suspect."
Viggo bucks desperately toward the hovering hand. "It was me, it was me!"
Sean pulls his hand away, glaring, "It was not, you're just hopin' for more punishment!" He smirks evilly. "Of course, perjury carries its own penalties."
"I'm a terrible person!" Viggo insists loudly. "I leave the toilet seat up! I drink milk straight out of the carton!"
Sean leers at him in a dastardly sort of way, grabs him two-fisted by the hips and starts doing awful things with his tongue to Viggo's tender places. Viggo's eyes roll back in his head. "Ohh, that's h-horrible..."
Sean does worse things with his lips, and dreadful things with his teeth. Viggo groans aloud as Sean's hands push ruthlessly outward against the insides of Vig's thighs, and he delves deeper between Viggo's legs to perpetrate truly hideous things with his tongue, things about which the Geneva Convention would certainly have something to say.
Viggo writhes in sheer, abject misery. Sean cackles in a vile, tying the hero to a Catherine wheel sort of way, his breath hot on Viggo's intimate skin.
"Billy sat on Ian's hat and blamed Liv!" Viggo blurts desperately. "Lawrence left a dead weta in Miranda's trailer, and Miranda dropped it into Pete's backpack, and Pete screeched like a little girl! I heard him!"
Viggo's hands clutch at the bottom sheet while his legs flail widely in the air, his long toes flared as though they've gone prehensile, dragging the air behind Sean.
Viggo grimaces in agony and yelps at the ceiling, "Elijah snores! Orlando stole your Jelly Babies!"
Sean abruptly leaves off brutalising Viggo's tender body and snarls, "Bloody hell, it ain't handcuffs we need round here, it's a fuckin' gag!"
Viggo glances interestedly around his bedroom. "Do we *have* handcuffs?"
Sean's splutter of laughter completely ruins his role as ruthless interrogator, and he lunges forward to kiss Viggo with messy enthusiasm.
When they pause for breath, disheveled and happy, Viggo takes Sean's face between his hands. "You're back!"
"What're you on about now?"
"You're back, Sean. This face, this look in your eyes like that day, that day when I *knew*!"
"Daft! Leggo me face!" Sean makes no particular effort to wrest himself free.
"The day I rugby tackled you for the first time," Viggo explains, grey eyes gleaming with delight. "That expression that was half anger, half laughter, half mystification."
"Viggo, y'can't have three halves," Sean points out, just because it seems someone ought to.
Viggo licks his lips, his breathing deepening as he remembers. "It was the first time I felt my body jarring against yours. The first time I felt you rolling beneath me."
Sean's eyes darken, and he presses himself between Viggo's legs suggestively. "Like that?"
Viggo exhales sharply, and his grip falters. "Yeah. Like that. I knew I wanted that. This."
Sean chews gently at the cleft in Viggo's scruffy chin, murmuring, "D'you want it now?"
"Mm, yeah, now." His heels come down lightly against Sean's backside. "One of us is wearing far too many clothes."
Sean slithers backward off of him, and starts to pull off his t-shirt.
"Wait," Viggo breathes. "Go slowly."
Sean shakes his head indulgently as he slowly draws the edge of the shirt up past his belly, up to his chest, and Viggo notices the purple splotches across the low part of his stomach, twins to his own, where the Land Rover's seatbelt bruised Sean in the process of saving his life. Viggo imagines he can hear the metallic crunching sounds the Rover made as it rolled, just before he blacked out. His heart thumps irregularly for a couple of beats.
The t-shirt rolls up to reveal Sean's chest and throat, his face momentarily hidden, then Sean's grin reappears, then his shining eyes. His hair ruffles free from the collar. Viggo bites his lip and hums softly, watching the way the deepening afternoon light turns Sean's skin to the gold blush of a wild rose, the clean lines of his body and an athlete's natural vigor gleaming through. Sean rolls the shirt down off his biceps, flexes his shoulders, grins at Viggo's appreciative gape, and tosses the shirt aside.
The shorts go next, Sean side winding his hips past the waistband, Viggo's eyes on him, glinting like struck flint at a tall, cool draught of male nakedness. Naked Sean, he thinks, means a good day, even with a concussion. The light caresses Sean's body and softens the angles of his face, makes the green of his eyes seem to reflect forever.
It occurs to Viggo briefly that he'd just about kill to have his camera in his hand, or that maybe he might get Sean to stand there like that later, when Viggo can draw him, or put these colors together on canvas, but he realizes he'd never be able to do it without his hands shaking, and then Viggo lunges aside for the earthy reality of the nightstand, rummaging like a madman in the little drawer for proper supplies. He feels the bed sink, turns to find Sean stalking his way up his body, and oh heavens, the way the man's shoulders look in this light, green eyes and broad shoulders coming to get Viggo, and Viggo's long legs make room, lots of room.
"Please hurry, I think I'm about to implode."
Sean admonishes smoothly, "Oh, sure, now ye want it all speedy-like."
With perverse pleasure he refuses to rush, and Viggo twitches impatiently, and perhaps just a touch nervously, given the gleam in Sean's eyes, but it isn't long before Sean is looming over him, and then they're fitting themselves into and around each other with smooth groans and slow sighs, Sean settling himself between Viggo's legs like a jaguar into his rightful kill.
Viggo's ankles hook over Sean's back, his hips canting up as high as he can force them, bringing Sean in as close as possible. It would be easier for Sean if he were to kneel and pull Viggo's hips up into his lap, but Sean seems to want to touch Viggo, rub against him everywhere. Sean curves his hands behind Viggo's shoulders as Viggo's arms slide down his back, and Sean looks him steadily in the eyes as they rock together.
Sean's skin slides hot against Viggo's. The friction is exquisite. Viggo braces his feet flat on the mattress, and pushes his lower body upward to meet Sean. Sean finds the best angle, the one that will let him rake the inside of Viggo, make him gasp and swear, his body shoving and begging for more. Viggo's hand curves up to cradle the back of Sean's head, his hair soft and warm between Vig's fingers, the back of Sean's neck moistened with sweat. Viggo's other hand tracks the gathering tension in Sean's spine. He feels Sean's breath quicken on his face, Sean's hands gripping his shoulders, and Sean's hips...
"Sean…" Viggo breathes in, rocking upward into him, and Sean breathes out, "Aye…" and grips Viggo, hips rolling smooth and fast and hard, and Viggo wonders if he might swoon from the rhythm of it. He wants to close his eyes and arch his body into the hot pleasure of Sean's skin, pull Sean down into the curve of his own throat, feel his breath and the small groans he's making right there against his carotid, but Viggo doesn't want to miss--yes--when Sean bares his teeth, his eyes dark and wild, his open stare never leaving Viggo's. Sean chants Viggo's name in heathen benediction before he groans, shudders and twists, holding Viggo so tightly that it hurts, and then Sean shakes himself and pulls away, hands dragging down Viggo's chest, over his belly, into the dark curls between his legs, and Sean takes Viggo into his mouth to finish what he'd started earlier. Viggo grimaces and yells, white-knuckled against the sheet. Sean rubs one hand against the hollow of Viggo's hip, the other soothes along one trembling thigh.
As Viggo subsides, catching his breath and gulping distractedly, Sean kisses each of his hipbones, kisses his belly lightly, and crawls back up his body to kiss Viggo's sharp Adam's apple. Sean fits himself carefully against him, into the curve of his neck, nuzzling into his heavy pulse. "Alright then?"
Viggo wraps Sean in a sweaty embrace and laughs wearily. His ribs hurt. His shoulder is throbbing. Bliss makes his brain feel like goose down.
"Sean."
"Mm?"
"Tell me we didn't just completely screw up your knee."
Sean chuckles, his breath puffing warm onto Viggo's chest beneath his chin. He strokes Viggo's long torso affectionately. "Fuck it."
"Have to trust you on that. Sean?"
"Yeah?"
"Orlando did steal your Jelly Babies. Can't really blame the kid. They're kind of addictive. Especially the purple ones."
"Right, no more prescription painkillers for you. You're sticking to aspirin."
"Okey dokey."
There are a lot of things Viggo has wanted to say for a long time, but until now he didn't dare. He strokes the top of Sean's head, feels the weight of him making his bruises ache, and settles for one of them, for now. "Mine," he says distinctly.
Sean's face is hidden against Viggo's chest, but Viggo can feel him grinning, the way it stretches his cheeks and crinkles around his eyes. "Yes, Vig. Yours."
Having settled that, Viggo tangles his legs with Sean's and begins to doze off, musing contentedly about what Sean's naked skin might look like some summer sunrise in a cabin out in the middle of Idaho. He'll have to remember to bring his camera…
Summary: Aftermath of an auto crash. Sometimes a terrifying crisis turns out to be just what a guy needs.
Rated: R
Categories: Actor RPS Pairing: Sean/Viggo
Warnings: NoneChallenges:
Series: NoneChapters: 1 Completed: Yes
Word count: 3881 Read: 980
Published: 31 Jul 2009 Updated: 31 Jul 2009