Summary: Viggo can't sleep.

Rated: G

Categories: Actor RPS Pairing: Sean/Viggo

Warnings: None

Challenges:

Series: Untroubled

Chapters: 2 Completed: Yes

Word count: 1651 Read: 2278

Published: 01 Aug 2009 Updated: 01 Aug 2009

It was dark and silent, and so alien.

I'm happy to be here, Viggo thought, eyes open in the darkness.

He only needed to convince himself of that.

It was just the first week, he reasoned again, as he'd done every night since his arrival in Wellington. It was normal that he should feel like that--disoriented, even a little panicked at times; but he was already beginning to settle down. It wouldn't last for much longer. I'll be fine in no time, he thought again. And then again. And...

It wasn't working.

With a sigh he turned on his side, slowly. He was aching all over, because of the several hours he spent training every day with a sword--he liked it, and he liked New Zealand, and cast and crew and generally the people seemed nice enough. Some of them were even actually funny.

Yet he felt so disconnected, still. He had no anchor here, nothing to keep him grounded, to keep him from feeling the nostalgia so keenly--oh, during the day he was fine. Too busy to be nothing else, really. But at night, alone in his bed--so completely alone...

He remembered he had used to feel restless when he was younger, when his mind was so full of ideas and images and words and he just spent hours trying to decide how to take hold of all that, paralyzed by the choices, his own choices--he used to feel so lost, and Exene was often away with the band.

And so he would take Henry from his cradle and go to sleep with him, rocking his little boy in his arms, Henry's round golden head a warm and sweet weight against his chest. His son had always been his anchor, his unconditional, perfect love. His peace.

Thinking of Henry didn't help, though--it only increased his loneliness. Everything felt so different here, the night was so unnaturally quiet, the stillness so perfect--he couldn't find any peace in it.

He couldn't stand it any longer.

The door didn't even creak when he opened it, leaving the silence unbroken, untroubled. The hallway was dark, only the dimmest light from the outside filtered in through the closed shutters, letting him see where he was going.

There was only one other person in the house.

Peter and the other executives had apologized profusely when explaining why they hadn't a place ready for him, but for Viggo sharing space with someone else hadn't been a problem. It had meant less time to himself to brood, a chance to adjust faster. And when Sean Bean, during sparring, had sent Viggo's sword flying from his hand and offered his own place, Viggo had felt that things would be all right, after all.

And they were, most of the time. He just needed to adjust to the nights.

Sean's bedroom was at the other end of the hallway. The door wasn't locked, and when Viggo turned the handle it opened with a quiet sigh, just a ripple on the still surface of the silence.

Viggo couldn't actually remember ever waking up at night and go to his parents' room as a child, yet he distantly knew it had happened--and he felt sure he'd felt like this on those nights, pausing to watch the big bed from the doorway, uncertain and needy, looking for comfort in the scary shadows.

He moved a step inside.

Sean's room was no different from his own. It smelled of night--of stillness, and darkness... that peculiar immobility and lack of activity which Viggo always thought of as night. A sleepy scent, a quiet scent.

He could smell a faint lingering trace of cigarette smoke, too--and of Sean's aftershave. The room smelled of night and quiet and Sean.

Viggo took a deep breath. The silence wasn't perfect, here: he could hear Sean's soft breathing, and it was enough to make his heart feel better already, to make him leave his doubts at the door and walk over to the bed.

Sean was on his back, sheets loose around his waist in the warm spring night, his mouth half-open, his breath soft and easy like a child's.

"Sean?" Viggo whispered, but so softly the night was left undisturbed, and Sean didn't even stir. Viggo leaned over the bed, bending down. "Sean," he murmured, their mouths close.

Sean made an indistinct sound, his breathing hitched a little, changing pattern. But he didn't wake.

"Can I sleep here?" Viggo asked, so quietly he wasn't sure he'd actually spoken aloud.

Sean mumbled something in his sleep; and then he scooted over, turning on his side facing Viggo. Making space.

Reflexes of a married man, of a father, Viggo thought. He smiled a little, more relieved than he cared to admit, and as lightly as he could he got into the bed.

After a moment Sean's arms closed around him, his head coming to rest, warm and safe, in the hollow of Viggo's neck. Viggo took a breath--deep, calm--breathed night and Sean. He wondered if he could manage to wake up before him in the morning, wondered if he should be glad that Sean wouldn't probably remember this, or would think of it as an odd dream.

"Night, Sean," Viggo whispered, his lips somewhere near Sean's cheek; and after a moment more he heard Sean mumble, voice low and thick, "'night, love," in his sleep.

Viggo smiled, and for the first time that night he closed his eyes.

It's peaceful here, he thought. And he fell asleep.