To be perfectly honest, Sean had completely lost track of where the hell he was a few plane trips back. It wasn’t as if it was particularly important, to be honest—all that changed were the interviewers, and sometimes the language. The hotel rooms all looked the same and one seemed just as claustrophobic as the others. Or it might be because most of the cast were holed up together.
Sean knew that he could have asked for a room of his own instead of sharing with others; he was, after all, the biggest name in the credits. Admitting that wasn’t being arrogant—it was being honest, especially since he had the most promotion to do despite how much he hated promotion, for the very simple reason that his face and name was the most well-known. Not even Nikolaj was as well-known, which was odd because he was far more conventionally ‘pretty’ and he was in Bent and Kingdom of Heaven and Black Hawk Down and popular stuff that won awards like that.
Sean just didn’t want to stay in a room of his own. It would be damn lonely, and he couldn’t screw around with the others as easily. Case in point: right now.
“Lannister bastard,” he yelled, squinting at the computer screen. He had a little phrase book in his hand. “Come over here!”
Nikolaj poked his head out of his room. It was mid-afternoon, and most of them have just returned from an interview. Some of them, like Kit, Mark and Jason, were still out there doing the circuit. No one else had anything left for the day except for him, which was why Sean was still dressed in a suit while Nikolaj was left with only a shirt and boxers.
The Lannister bastard clomped over, dropping down onto the couch beside Sean. “What the fuck do you want, Stark moron?” he asked pleasantly.
Sean pointed accusingly at the screen. “How the ‘ell do you book tickets online?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Peter poking his head out of his room. When the man realised that he wasn’t the Lannister bastard being called for, he ambled out of the suite. Presumably to call on the third Lannister bastard to gawk at the one Stark who got roped into rooming with all of them.
“Let me see,” Nikolaj commandeered the laptop that Sean had borrowed from one of the PAs that were scurrying around. “Why don’t you get your agent to do things like that?”
“Wanted ta do it meself,” Sean shrugged, shoving his thumbs into his pockets. He told himself that he wasn’t embarrassed. “But I just ain’t good with computers.”
Nikolaj gave him a look, like Jaime found Ned to be an utterly fascinating creature and what was a man like that doing in King’s Landing? It was an expression first born when he thought about Sean and Hollywood. But he turned back to the screen quickly enough, looking through the website. He clicked through it a few times, frowning.
“That’s kind of obvious. But Sean, look, I really don’t think you can book here,” he said, and clicked around a few more times.
“Site’s first page tol’ me I could,” Sean said, peering at the screen. He hated computers. “I’m lookin’ fer Purgatorio, staged in the Las Naves del Español.” The Spanish words tripped off his tongue carefully.
There was a longer pause, broken only by the clicking of the mouse.
“Sean,” Nikolaj eventually said, pulling back from the screen. He turned around, and his look of sheepish regret looked odd on a face that Sean had seen more often as Jaime Lannister than as Nikolaj himself. “Look- I did find that one.”
“… Yeah?”
“It opens in November, Sean. The opening day hasn’t even been decided on yet.”
“… November, huh?”
“Yeah, it’s going to run from November to December, and it’ll end a little before Christmas, I guess.” He paused for a moment. “You’ll probably have better luck looking up this website again in October or so.”
He reached over and punched Sean on the shoulder, “Why do you want to see it anyway? It looks like of boring, just two people talking in a language I’m pretty sure you don’t even know.”
Sean gave him a wry grin. He got up and moved towards his room. From the doorway, he waved a thick Spanish phrasebook. “I’m learnin’ it,” he told Nikolaj solemnly, then broke the illusion by grinning.
Nikolaj snorted and didn’t ask. He closed the window before pushing down the lid of the laptop, and then turned around to look Sean up and down through slightly-narrowed eyes. “You look better,” he pronounced sagely, nodding.
“Yeah?” Sean blinked.
“Yeah,” came the very decisive reply. “Less tired,” he ticked off on a finger. “Less old. Smiles more.” Nikolaj smiled a lecher’s grin. “Eminently more fuckable.”
Sean blinked again.
“What the hell did I come back to,” Peter intoned at the door. Nikolaj turned around and waved cheerily. “I went away for five minutes and I come back to my incestuous brother hitting on a man.”
Lena, the last bastard Lannister previously mentioned, peeled away from the doorway. She walked over to the couch and leaned against the back of it, reaching out to put her hands on his shoulders. “Nikolaj,” she said, perfectly seriously. Nikolaj tilted his head back, turned his most charming upside-down grin at her. “I told you: if you’re going to hit on Sean, you have to wait for me. Twins share everything. Including delicious men.”
“I,” Sean said slowly, enunciating every word in a perfect Received Pronunciation accent, “hate Lannisters.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Emilia chirped from the doorway, finally breaking her silence. “I find them pretty entertaining.”
“You would find us entertaining, my dear,” Peter said, flourishing a little bow towards her. “We didn’t end up chopping off your head.”
“Oh, burn,” Lena said.
Sean drew himself up as if to speak, but Nikolaj was shaking his head, grinning widely.
“You are all ridiculous,” he said. “I was only telling Sean that he looks better now. And it’s weird, because people tend to look like shit during promotion because it is bloody promotions and we spend most of our time on planes. Everyone tends to look better during actual filming because that’s the fun part of the job, and this is the tedious shit.” He paused. “Except for our radiant Emilia, of course, who always looks stunning.”
Emilia blushed.
Lena smacked him across the head. “Being a cradle robber is uncouth, Jaime,” she said.
“And how did I manage to forget my beautiful sister?” Nikolaj leaned in, smacking a kiss against her cheek. “But we were talking about Sean.”
They all turned to him.
“No, carry on,” Sean said, obviously amused. “I ain’t here at all.”
“For someone who isn’t there, you take up a lot of space,” Peter pointed out.
There was a pause, and Sean’s smile faded. He sighed a little, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s probably a curse on fantasy series or somethin’, fer me. While we were filmin’, me wife was makin’ noises ‘bout a divorce through the phone, and she filed the papers the moment I went back ta England. Wasn’t a pleasant thin’ ta be lingerin’ at the back o’ me mind throughout the shoot.”
Silence. No one seemed to know what to say for a moment. Out of the four of them, Lena, Nikolaj and Peter were all sickeningly happily married, and they knew better than to open their mouths to pretend to know what Sean had gone through; Emilia had no real idea what it meant to be married, and so had even less authority to speak. Besides, it seemed almost sacrilegious to speak without thinking about this, especially since Sean always seemed to have an aversion to talking about himself. They were with him for months, first in Middle of Nowhere, Ireland, then in Middle of Nowhere, Malta, and he had never once said a word about himself.
He was their biggest star and their best listener both, and Nikolaj could bet his entire salary that Sean knew and understood all of them far more than what the rest knew about him put together.
Lena and Emilia, of course, would know more. They even know what happened with his divorce—it would be hard not to get news about Sean Bean when you lived in London. But that was an entirely different case when compared to having it straight from the horse’s mouth.
Emilia took the first step, finally moving away from the doorway. She walked over to Sean and threw her arms around him, hugging him tight.
“Thank you, lass,” Sean said, hugging her back. He patted her on the head a little, and Emilia gave him a small, sweet smile. She couldn’t help it, really. Sometimes she was jealous of Sophie, Maisie, Kit, Richard, Isaac and even tiny little Art—they got to have so many scenes with Richard Sharpe, and she didn’t have any. At least she got to talk to him more during promotional tours.
“You’re alright now?” Nikolaj asked softly.
“Yeah,” Sean smiled a little, shrugging one shoulder. Emilia pulled back, a little reluctantly. “An old friend of mine came over during Christmas, and he stayed fer a bit. Got me ‘ead out of me ass, and stopped me from mopin’ ‘round.”
His smile widened even further, like there was sweetness to that memory that even the sharp bitterness of a divorce could not touch.
“Good,” Lena said, and that was that.
***
18 December 2011
Stranger in a strange land. or so the quote goes.
Sean didn’t visit other countries unless it was for work. He preferred to stay in London when he had spare time, because that’s where almost everything he cared about was. But he supposed he could make an exception for this, although there was a part of him that felt absolutely foolish about this.
But he was in Madrid already, and he had bought tickets for Purgatorio. Lorna had helped him with it back in London, and she had that odd smug little smile on her face. Maybe it was because he bought three tickets, all on different days, with each one of them situated somewhere in the middle rows. He could sit in the front row, of course, but… he just didn’t want to. He didn’t want Viggo to be able to see him. Sean knew how much a distraction having a familiar face in the audience could be, especially when one wasn’t particularly expecting it. He experienced it himself when Bernard Cornwall came down for Macbeth.
Honestly, he was just making excuses. He had watched Viggo for two nights now, and he knew that if he even breathed near the backstage, he would be taken in to see Viggo. Even here, Lord of the Rings was famous. Or he could have even just called Viggo up and told him that he was here and asked for a backstage pass. That would be the most considerate option.
Instead he lingered behind, hiding under a hat amongst the groups of fans that greeted Viggo and his co-star as they came out of the stage. He watched, half-smiling, as Viggo smiled, signed autographs and spoke in flawless Spanish to his fans. He watched as Viggo got into a battered car and drove off every single day. He watched all of it, and he did nothing.
Today was the last day- the last day for the show. There wouldn’t be any other legitimate reasons to visit Viggo if he had missed it, and Sean had no idea (bullshit, said a small voice inside his head) why he was so nervous. He had no idea why he didn’t just go up to Viggo the first day and greeted him. They didn’t part on bad terms, though Sean hadn’t seen him since last December. They had both been busy, and when they were both in the same city at the same time it always ended up that their schedules were so packed that they couldn’t even find a single night to have dinner with each other.
It was the life of an actor, and Sean had long gotten used to it. It was something that had destroyed at least two of his marriages (Gina was a whole other kettle of fish). But he couldn’t help the bitter taste of regret, and his hands lingered on Viggo’s heart-pieces for longer than ever. It had become, in the absence of London and Sheffield and his garden, a symbol of home.
He was staying in another anonymous hotel room. It was one with a balcony, and he stepped outside. The Madrid wind whipped through his hair, cold and sharp against the thin skin of his eyelids and his eyelashes. It was winter, and the breeze whipped away his voice as he spoke the words, spreading each consonant and vowel throughout the city.
I have recordings of our voices
In rooms now collapsed.
A bell tower rang out the time, and Sean knew he had another three hours. He placed Recent Forgeries on the edge of the banister and looked outwards to the skies streaked with reds and pinks and oranges, and wondered why his heart seemed so full of hope.
Three hours more. Sean, too, had learned patience, but he had never learned as quickly as Viggo. Spanish was unwieldy on his tongue, and impatience still came far easier.
***
The standing ovations had stopped surprising Sean by now, and he only smiled, getting to his feet along with the rest and clapping enthusiastically. The sounds of his hands were drowned in the cacophonies of the rest, and he berated himself for the twinge of regret.
He headed for the backstage, and his feet walked him there. He knew the way well by now, after two days of memorising the steps without taking them. This time, he took them, shoving his hands into the pockets of his black slacks as he smiled at the security guard.
“Estoy aquí para ver Viggo,” he said haltingly, his accent atrocious. “Soy un amigo.”
The guard blinked at him, uncomprehending. Was his Spanish that bad? Sean dragged a hand through his hair.
“I’m here to see Viggo,” he said, curbing his Northern drawl as much as possible, his consonants clipped and nervous. “I’m a friend of his. Sean Bean.”
He shouldn’t have even tried the phrase book, because the guard’s eyes widened, then narrowed at him, as if trying to ascertain his identity with just a look.
After a moment, he said, in English as halting and thick, nearly as incomprehensible as Sean’s Spanish, “I am a great fan of your work. Alec- is my… favourite.”
Sean smiled, and he signed an autograph for a guard before he was let in and shown the way to Viggo’s dressing room. His hands were sweaty, and he wiped them on his slacks, leaving streaks of shadows against the black cotton. He dragged another hand through his hair, and scolded himself for being nervous.
He opened the door, “Hey, Vig—”
Viggo was sitting on his makeup table, his doctor’s coat shed and folded over at the couch tucked into a corner of the wall, and he wore only the black shirt and pants of his costume. His thighs were spread outwards, and his hand was buried in a woman’s hair. His other hand was curled around her jaw, pulling her closer. Their lips were sealed together, Viggo’s eyes closed as if in rapture.
Sean’s hand slowly slipped from the doorknob. His breath slammed into his lungs like an attack, and shuddered out of him like death itself. The woman—he recognised the woman. She played Viggo’s lover in Appaloosa, didn’t she? A girl named Katie, and she was beautiful. She was beautiful now, wrapped up in Viggo’s arms, her hands stark-pale against Viggo’s shoulder as she smoothed it downwards. She had calluses on the tips of her fingers; he could hear it from the rough rasp of the cotton.
What was her name? Adriana? Ariadna?
Nothing shattered inside him. Sean kept his eyes open and his lips sealed shut. But he could not control his heart, and he could not control his breath. He controlled his eyes instead, and kept them wide open. He controlled his hand and forced it to rise and close around the doorknob. They obviously hadn’t taken any note of him. He took a step back, and the sound of his foot against the ground was like a crack of thunder.
He closed the door.
***
Viggo turned his head at the click of the door closing, breaking the kiss. There was a mere shadow, at the edge of his eyes; a glimpse of gold and green. Did he imagine it?
“He is here,” Ariadna whispered into his ear, her fingers tracing against the shell of the other one. She smiled crookedly at him, and kissed him gently on the side of his lips. “That man from your suitcase.”
Sean.
Viggo clambered down from the desk, his eyes wide and lips parted, half-horrified. He looked at Ariadna for a moment more, his body tense and frozen, and the knock on the door was a benediction and a curse all at the same time. He looked at Ariadna for a moment, his breath in his throat, and she only nodded towards the door.
He took a deep breath. It was only a door. His hand splayed against the wood, his hand curled around the doorknob. Was it merely his imagination, or could he feel the warmth of Sean’s hand lingering? He pulled it open.
“Hey, Vig,” Sean said, and he was smiling wide, leaning against the doorframe with one hand. He lifted a hand and half-waved at Ariadna, who, Viggo could see, was leaning with one hip against the makeup table.
“Hey,” Viggo said. “I didn’t see you during the show.”
“I came here late. Only managed ta get one of the middle rows,” Sean shrugged a little, and he didn’t step into the room. There was a silence between their words, a space between their bodies, and Viggo felt a sudden, insistent resentment that stuck itself to the back of his throat.
“Could tell you were great even back there. Though, me biggest problem’s probably that I can’t understand a single word.”
When, Viggo thought, had Sean started smiling with only his mouth and not his eyes? When had he started smiling like that to Viggo?
“I think you two need to catch up,” Ariadna said, and there was a quiet chill to her voice. She picked up her purse and headed for the door. “I’ll just wait for you outside, Viggo.”
“Nah,” Sean said, and it was him who reached forward and brushed his hand against her wrist. He smiled, charming as always. “I’m goin’ soon; just came here to say hi ta Vig. I have a plane to catch.” He paused. Viggo knew he should say something, but all of his words had tangled themselves in his lungs, and he couldn’t even think of a single thing to say.
“I didn’t know Viggo was datin’ anyone,” Sean continued.
“Well,” Viggo said, finding his voice suddenly, and he was shocked at the bitterness of it. “I didn’t know you were dating anyone until Elijah called me to ask if I knew you got married. If, you know, we’re comparing.”
Sean gave him a long look. “Aye,” he said, and turned away. He crossed his arms. “Aye, there’s that.”
“Don’t,” Viggo said, and his hands were clenching into fists and he didn’t even know why. “Don’t you fucking dare to look like that.”
“What am I lookin’ like, Vee-goh?” Sean drew out his name, his Northern English accent exaggerated to the point of near-parody. He had drawn himself up, lips pulling back, showing teeth. Like a cornered predator.
Well, Viggo refused to be his prey. “What the hell are you doing in Spain, Sean?”
“Thought I knew, but looks like I’m wrong ‘bout this. Probably wrong ‘bout a lot of shit too. Like marryin’ Gina, since you want ta bring ‘er up. Like thinkin’ that you would give a shit that I’m ‘ere,” Sean was breathing hard now, spitting fire even though his voice was low, staring straight into Viggo’s eyes. “Should I be sorry that I ain’t fuckin’ perfect all the damn fuckin’ time? I ain’t you, Vig. I can’t fuckin’ think of what ta say on the fly. I can’t give you the right answer. I ain’t got any of the right answers.”
Viggo felt like he was suddenly lost at sea. “What,” he asked, slowly, “the fuck are you talking about?”
Sean suddenly sagged, rubbing a hand over his eyes. He laughed, a sound so bitter that it cut straight into Viggo’s heart. The cracks that had formed when he first saw Sean at the door deepened even further. “Nothin’,” Sean said. “I’m just- I’m just lonely and greedy, sick for attention, dyin’ fer company.”
Viggo’s brain screeched to a complete halt. “What-” he whispered. “What did you say?”
“Nothin’, Vig,” Sean said, and he scrubbed at his face. “I ain’t said nothin’. Look-”
“Don’t you fucking dare run away from me,” he didn’t know where it came from. Viggo didn’t know why he was suddenly so angry. He didn’t know why he growled like that, or when his hands had bunched themselves into Sean’s collar, pulling him close before he slammed him against the doorframe. He didn’t know when he started breathing hard through bared teeth, with his eyes fixed upon Sean’s, trying to find the right answers that the man had just declared he didn’t have.
“What. The. Hell. Did you just say?”
“Like a fallin’ heart,” Sean recited, voice flat, eyes fixed upon a spot on the wall that Viggo couldn’t see. “And graze the stone wall.”
Viggo’s hands grew numb, his anger drained off like someone had pulled the plug. He took a step back, and he couldn’t even think of anything to say. “You-”
Sean pushed him off, and shoved his hands into his own pockets immediately as if touching Viggo’s skin had been poison to him and he needed to rub it off immediately. “Picked it up one day. Got it stuck in me ‘ead since.” He shrugged, falsely casual.
“Sean-”
“I ain’t got any of the right answers, Vig,” Sean’s voice was soft now. Viggo was suddenly reminded of a room in the Heathrow Hilton, the smell of red wine, and Sean’s warmth and tears against his shoulders. “I ain’t even know what I’m doin’ ‘ere. But I just- I just got one question.”
He took a deep breath. “We’ve talked plenty since last Christmas. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Viggo retreated into anger. He turned his back to Sean, purposefully avoiding even Ariadna’s eyes. She was still standing there, watching the two of them. He didn’t want to know what she thought.
“I didn’t realise that you’ve become my nursemaid and I’ve got to report to you everything I do.”
“Nah,” Sean said, and his smile was crooked and there was no happiness in it at all. “Just thought I’m a friend. It ain’t matter, Vig.” He peeled himself from the wall, heading for the door. “Don’t worry ‘bout it. I’ll see you ‘round, yeah? Circuits, premieres such like.”
Viggo didn’t turn around; he watched Sean out of the corner of his eyes. His hands were clenched in his own pockets. “What about your garden?”
“It ain’t worth seein’,” Sean said, and he waved a hand, dismissing every single word he had ever told Viggo of his garden, of his heart’s joy. When he spoke next, it was to Ariadna, as if Viggo had completely disappeared between the end of one sentence and the start of the next.
“He’s a ‘andful. You sure you know what yer getting’ into?” It sounded like the beginning of a joke, but the punchline was lost and Sean wasn’t even bothering to try to find it.
“I know now,” Ariadna said, and her voice was soft and sad and knowing.
“Good. Good. Uh- sorry. We raised a racket. Didn’t mean to,” there was a pause. Viggo did nothing. Sean stepped out of the dressing room.
The door shut behind him with a click.
Medicated limbs, lonely and greedy, sick for attention, dying for
Company, you're drunk for days. Overburdened, moss-rotted branches
Heave slowly with the weak night breeze, like a falling heart, and
Graze the stone wall.
The nurse in won't let me leave.
- Viggo Mortensen, Weekends
Summary: There is one secret that Sean keeps from Viggo, and one secret that Viggo keeps from Sean. One day both will be blown open, and they both can't wait for that day.
Rated: G
Categories: Actor RPS Pairing: Sean/Viggo
Warnings: NoneChallenges:
Series: NoneChapters: 10 Completed: No
Word count: 28356 Read: 10273
Published: 30 May 2012 Updated: 30 May 2012