Sean woke, farted and turned over. Viggo was noisily pissing in the toilet, and trying to sing. 'SIng? huh that - singing? dammit!' Sean grunted himself upright, he needed a leak too, badly, and he was not going to sing while he peed. He'd sung enough last night. He reckoned he'd reached top G that last time Viggo had spent himself into Sean with that long gasping groan. Viggo grinned at him as he skittered past towards the kitchen and threw the wet shower towel from last night at Sean's head.
"Gerrup you lazy whore, you'd lie abed all bloody day, you would!' Sean couldn't disagree with that, especially if Viggo was in bed too. He peered in the mirror, flinched, and wiped his face and top with a washcloth, trying to unglue his eyes.
"Christ, I'm a mess in the mornings, but it’s his fault, he makes me lose it completely."
He tottered towards the kitchen, and hearing the thump of the mail coming in the door, deviated, and retrieved a pile of the usual junk. Riffling through it on the way to the kitchen and a restorative two or three cups of Yorkshire Tea, he was just going to toss it all into the paperbin, when his eye caught sight of a large Turner-like picture of a foggy sea, calm, blue, a hint of a domed church beckoning... He pulled the picture free, threw the rest into the bin and fell into his chair at the kitchen table.
"Hey Vigs. Lookit this." His voice was rough and squawky this morning. Too much noise last night, they were noisy bastards, the two of them. "Hey, fancy a nice dreamy holiday, away from all this. His hand waved vaguely at the air around him, "Somewhere quiet and pretty and where we can just..." He shoved the brochure towards Viggo, who peered round the mate gourd fixed to his face, his eyes swivelling from the table to Sean's face, and mobile eyebrows raised in question.
“Where? It’s Venice. Well, not actually Venice, we don't want to go there, too many people, and shee-it, we don't want any more people. But why don't we find a nice little island with a good hotel, not too far away, so's we can pop over to the main island if we want, or just toodle round the others. It’s lovely just wandering round the Lagoon going where you feel like it.”
Viggo grunted and peered again at the paper. Held it critically before him, squinted close, then made it retreat, crumpled it up and then waved it straight.
"Looks better bent, lots more activity there, the water looks wet now. Yes! Why don't we? Good idea, Batman, and I'm fed up with anything plastic."
Sean nodded. Viggo had spent the last seven months being Sir Archie McIndoe, the first plastic surgeon to really rebuild broken and destroyed faces and bodies smashed by wars. Sean thought Viggo wanted to mend the world, in one way or another, his caring, loving friend and mate. Minds, bodies, hearts; a real softy inside. He was glad he was Viggo’s lover, and he could return all this love that Viggo gave away so freely.
Sean spent the next few hours on the computer, imbibing whatever liquid found itself within reach of his absently feeling hand. He even managed to scarf down nearly a whole freshly made bacon-and-egg sarny without tasting it until the egg squished down his chin. At noon, he whooped, crashed his chair back and leapt into the kitchen.
"Gottit. Gottit Vigs. We can go tonight! Get yer gear ready. Tek some of me stuff if'n yours is dirty, and leave that for Mrs. Chay, she'll do it. We're off, Vigs." He threw his arms round Viggo and kissed him soundly. "Got the odd thing I gotta do, but that'll just take a bit of this afternoon, and then we'll go. Leave from Gatwick, and they've bumped us up to First Class! I thought Business would be enough, ’cos it’s only a coupla hours on the plane, but..."
At just after five-thirty that afternoon, messages left, agents soothed, bankers assured, and the cat from next door hit with a lump of mud as it was digging up Sean's newly sown carrot bed, they rode in a purple cab to the concourse at Gatwick Airport.
By eleven that night they were having the second of the ice-cold beers from the bar of the Palazzo hotel. They had eaten a meal of gargantuan proportions, involving spaghetti, lobsters, and a vast bowlful of soft fruit smothered with cream. Sean sighed. He felt very happy. The stars were shining, the food was good, the bed seemed big enough and solid enough, and the welcome had been expansive. They'd enjoyed the ride from the airport to the island 'Le Vignole' in the hotel's own boat, while the sun set most Turneresquely to their right, and the sky changed from duck egg green to deep indigo on their left. Sean thought of Yeats and his 'embroidered cloth of night...' He'd been shot for reading that!
The bed that night was bliss. It bounced most satisfactorily, not too much and not too little, giving that little impetus to the twitch-leaping upwards Viggo gave as Sean bit-nibbled his nipples. They could turn over in one wild lunge, mounting one on to the other, and then rolling further, to turn and return, grasping and grabbing, licking, cursing and sucking. Biting, holding, shoving, shoving and banging, in and in and in… Soaring, screaming, sobbing, then softly sighing… dying.
For one whole week, it was peace: they had no television, no radio. No telephones either, as they'd made a pact not to have them switched on. Sean had cheated though, he'd hidden in the toilet every morning, and while he sat, he rang one of the girls to see if they were ok, although he knew Viggo wouldn't mind that. It was the eternal silly chatter they had become used to hearing they wanted to escape.
They hired a boat from the hotel, and a very large, detailed map was supplied. Days were spent exploring islands covered in salt reeds so high they lost each other, calling in bird voices to retrieve their human selves. They sat and mended nets with fishermen who smoked the blackest of tobacco ever used, and whose fingers flew like the lace-makers' of Burano, making their own lace-work of hair-fine nets to snare the small silver fry that swam in enormous sweeps in certain deeper bays of particular never-named islands. They made love in green-reeded inlets, and on the empty sands of long, thin beaches.
They drank wines, rough and dark, or sweet and the colour of early sun. Ate shellfish in creamy sauces, on pasta, and pierced onto kebab prongs. Sean had had one hefty meat dish, as he said he'd end up looking like a curly wiggly thing all over and not just his wiggly willy. They wandered round Chioggia with a paper bag full of freshly fried, piping hot chips, peering into the tiny dark shops that sold compasses and fish-hooks, rods, marlin spikes, lifebelts and even Horn of Gondor-type foghorns. They had had to leave that shop with smiling apologies as the noise had disturbed the owner’s wife upstairs who had appeared, large and fearsome, and very complaining.
Softly, gently, each day the evening fell asleep, and night crept in, whispering on starry feet. Sean and Viggo made love, like the evening departing, and the night arriving. Slowly, with tenderness, with care, with passion, with stars and colours. Words were said, murmured, of love, and sounds like 'forever' and 'always' and many, many chimings of 'Mine! mine!' from Sean and 'Min! Min!' from Viggo. dusted the air. It was a time of gathering together, and of release and letting go. It was their time. They were real, alive, and nothing, nowhere else existed. Just this time.
~~~~~
The airport departure was the same as airport departures are always. Noisy, pointless-seeming, just standing, waiting, sitting, checking the luggage in, then aimlessly half-listening for the call. The plane raised itself as if it was happy to leap away from the sharp white edges of the terminal buildings, the hard heated tarmac and the clatter of humanity. It subdued the bellyful of those noisy holidaymakers it had swallowed, and would vomit up at Gatwick after it had thudded to the ground, and rested.
Sean and Viggo had ordered a car for the return to London. They climbed in, gave Sean's address and Viggo said,
"The place stinks! It stinks! Musty fusty diesel and people. I'd forgotten we should be breathing air when we were here, but it was real air there all this week. No wonder everything was so crystalline."
Sean was busy texting with his phone. He'd forgotten to ask the girls to check the house, switch on the electricity and the hot water so they'd be able to have a decent reviving shower. Planes always made him feel grubby. He couldn't get Molly, but eventually found Lorna. She texted some speak he couldn't quite make out. Looked like 'Miss4U2clear. 2much4 me. ky usl L" Oh well, it'd be sorted when they got home.
Two tired men staggered up the steps, Sean shoved on the door and they fell inside. The kitchen was awash. The lounge carpet was rolled up into the wall, the parquet floor discoloured and stained with water. Books and papers that usually lived on the floor were hung, spread and draped over everything spreadable and drapeable.
Sean looked at Viggo, and Viggo looked at Sean. Faces torn between tears and an insane desire to giggle, to laugh, to hold each other up and love while they despairingly celebrated their return home. The water tank had leaked for a whole week, had burst its seams and sown chaos and Lorna's 'miss' throughout the ground floor. Sean was very glad that the tank lived under the stairs, and not upstairs.
Recovering, Viggo went to put on the kettle. He always reckoned that the Brits managed everything disastrous much better with a cup of tea inside them. He filled the kettle, plugged it in, pushed the switch and received a huge jolt, heard a crack of doom and a lump of wall shot forward and hit him in the chest. Sean heard the explosion, and found Viggo leaning back against the table, cackling helplessly. He worriedly checked Viggo wasn’t injured, then went to the cupboard that held the fuses, and pulled up the main fuse handle. Lights off, TV off, no radio, hi-fi, or computer. Peace. Peace.
"Not exactly as quiet outside as the Lagoon, Vigs me old darling, but it’s as wet, and we won't drown upstairs,." and he turned, carried the bags up the stairs, singing 'O Sole Mio' at the top of his voice. Viggo followed, so very happy to be home with that idiotic bastard Sean bloody Bean.
Summary: Sean and Viggo take a lovely holiday...
Rated: NC-17
Categories: Actor RPS Pairing: Sean/Viggo
Warnings: NoneChallenges:
Series: NoneChapters: 1 Completed: Yes
Word count: 1838 Read: 371
Published: 03 Sep 2011 Updated: 03 Sep 2011