I open my mind,
my body, my soul.
My reason for being
a part of the whole.
And I follow the feeling,
the truth in myself.
The thoughts in my head,
the words in my mouth.
-Sandals
~~~
Breathe. Think. But do it quick. Deep breath, Sean.
Stupid, motherfucking drunk driver, on a back-road in the wee hours of the morning. Sean knew head-wounds always over-bled, but the taste of it was making him queasy anyway. He knew you weren't supposed to pull an accident victim from the vehicle until the EMTs arrived, but Viggo had been bloody and unconscious when the rented Land Rover righted itself and came to a whomping standstill amid a cloud of dust and debris, and the gas tank was leaking, and Sean didn't much care for the way the math added up there.
The pulse in Viggo's neck wasn't as strong as Sean would have liked it, and he hadn't made so much as a grunt since Sean pulled him well away from the truck and out of the steep down-slope path of it, in case it should roll again. They were lucky it hadn't rolled all the way down into the narrow canyon with them in it. Sean started thinking lurid thoughts about internal injuries and Viggo going into shock, and cursed at himself to quit being such a useless git, and to not panic.
So now Sean clings to the face of the ravine's severe slope, angling for the small glow of Viggo's cell-phone, lying open in the grass down at the bottom, in a galaxy far, far away. He can't find a better way to get to it than climbing down here, at least not anywhere that he can see nearby, in the dark. He's a good climber, better after all the practice he's had lately, avoiding those stomach-churning helicopter flights, but fuck if this rock isn't the last decent handhold for a long, long way down, and now he's got a decision to make. Take a deep breath, Sean.
Taking the scenic route back from a Hobbit party, they were. Sean had been edgy all evening, trying to reconcile conflicting survival instincts, short with everyone, especially Vig, who didn't deserve it, and Sean felt guilty for his behavior, then angry at himself for feeling guilty, then selfish for being angry about feeling guilty, all of it winding him into an emotional flat-spin that had put him into a corner, chain-smoking and nursing a beer, black-tempered and afraid to get drunk, for fear of what he might say.
He blinks at the blood running into his eyes, calculates how many bones he might break if he lets himself fall, and will he remain conscious to use the phone? It's far enough down that something nasty is sure to happen, and even if he doesn't actually break his wretched neck, if he racks himself up Peter will fucking kill him. Not that Pete's getting far without Viggo. Take a deep breath, Sean.
Finally Viggo, ignoring Sean's surly, clipped sentences, suggested that they leave the increasingly raucous party, that they take a drive in the roofless Land Rover Viggo had rented, head into the hills, into the moonlit dark. Sean agreed, not so much because the idea of a long drive on a beautiful New Zealand night appealed to him as that he felt a need to be moving, preferably moving fast, an illusion of escaping from himself.
People think Sean is afraid of flying, but that isn't it at all. Flying is fine with him. Flying is grand. It's the plummeting from the sky in flames that bothers him, the bone-crushing, flesh-mangling landing at the end. The break-up of all break-ups. Vig still hasn't made any noise up there. Sean needs that phone. Take a deep breath, Sean.
Viggo did not press Sean to speak during the drive, no trying to pry out of him the raw details of his mood, just allowed the physicality of the drive to soothe him; the rumble and shake of the engine, rush of autumn wind, cocoon of darkness, glittering slide of the risen moon. The landscape passed by under a pale bronze light, the rich, damp scent of dried summer grasses rushing over them in the night. Sean at last felt his shoulders loosen, the spring-loaded tension in his spine ease, something in his chest begin to unlock, and he was on the verge of reaching out silently for Vig's shoulder when the four-door sedan slung around a blind corner at them and clipped the driver's side of the Rover hard at the apex of the turn, sending it rolling horribly into the dark past the shallow shoulder of the road, and the worthless fucker didn't even stop to acknowledge what he had done.
Sean shifts his grip, twists his feet, so that his heels instead of his toes are dug into the ravine's side, keeps an awkward hold on the big boulder jutting out. A self-inflicted trip to the emergency room is not an attractive scenario, but just now his options are limited. He'll be going there with Vig, one way or another. Take a deep breath, Sean.
Sean hedged for it on his knees most of the time, an evasive maneuver, but it got him what he thought he needed, pushing back into Viggo, craving the contact, the relief of Vig's solid strength against him, the artist's hands on him, one bracing a long thigh, the other splayed in the warm sweat of Sean's back, feeling his muscles move, tracing his spine strung tight, flexing forward and back like a cheetah on the run, shoulders tensing and rolling, long limbs reaching forward, hands clawing at the sheets, and the deep, carnivorous sounds Sean couldn't help releasing into the dark, Vig's body tuned to receive what he had helped to create.
Vig, jumping into everything with both feet. He's been through just as much crap as Sean, of one sort or another, yet he keeps soldiering on fearlessly, and Sean wonders how the hell he manages that. He wonders just how many stitches in his own face the makeup people will be able to disguise, if it comes to that. They're a talented lot, but they're only human. Take a deep breath, Sean.
There were times when Vig asked him for it face to face, and Sean allowed it because he knew Vig needed that, but he always started out tense, skittish, knowing that Vig would at some point find the truth in what Sean failed to hide behind his eyes, in the way he couldn't help arching up into Vig's hands, in the way he clenched his teeth sometimes, trying to hold back honest words pushed out under ragged breath, a conspiracy of body and soul stubbornly reaching out for what Sean's fear of yet another emotional catastrophe tried to push away. Always, Vig gave Sean everything he had, offered it freely, speaking Sean's name in urgent murmurs, like an astronaut adrift, dreaming of Earth.
The cell-phone glows enticingly down there in the darkness. Above, Viggo lies silently in the dusty grass, and the Rover drips petrol. There are things Sean needs to say to Vig, and that Vig deserves to hear. Sean steadies his stance, bunches the muscles in his legs, feels the long spring in his spine tense up. He takes a deep breath, and launches himself outward into the dark air.
Summary: Sometimes you just have to jump in with both feet, and damn the torpedoes.
Rated: R
Categories: Actor RPS Pairing: Sean/Viggo
Warnings: NoneChallenges:
Series: NoneChapters: 1 Completed: Yes
Word count: 1240 Read: 859
Published: 31 Jul 2009 Updated: 31 Jul 2009