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Summary: Sean is waiting for something.

Rated: NC-17

Categories: Actor RPS Pairing: Sean/Viggo

Warnings: None

Challenges:

Series: None

Chapters: 1 Completed: Yes

Word count: 5142 Read: 1010

Published: 01 Aug 2009 Updated: 01 Aug 2009

*****

Viggo being late as usual, and Sean being not, all Sean can do is wait for Viggo outside the Costume trailer, smoking what he swears will be his last cigarette of--at least--the day.

Ian McKellen comes out of the trailer and walks right up to him, cigarette ready, a pleading look on his face.

Sean laughs, and lights the cigarette for him. "Would-be quitter?"

"I have yet to decide." Ian takes a drag, exhales slowly. "This beats pipeweed every time." He gestures towards Costume. "Are you waiting for your liege? He'll take a while yet."

"Yeah. It figures." Sean grins, waving his own cigarette around a little, watching glowing ashes turning to dust mid-air, the light burning brightly for an instant before dying out. "We're going out to dinner. Want to join us?"

Ian shakes his head, the lines at the corners of his eyes wrinkling up in amusement. "I've got my own plans."

"Hot date?" Sean can't help but ask, and Ian's smirk is positively wicked.

"You could say that." They wait for a while in silence, sitting down on one of the benches scattered all over the trailer park. Costume is just behind them. Then Ian says, "You two have been getting quite close, lately."

Sean takes one last drag from his cigarette, lets it fall to the ground. He puts it out with his boot, then looks up into Ian's gentle face, and shrugs. "It's a hard job, but someone's gotta do..."

A light tap to the back of his head gives away Viggo's sudden presence behind him. "You cunt," Viggo drawls, the expression slightly odd on his lips.

Then Viggo is leaning over right next to him, hands in pockets, one foot up on the bench, smiling down at Ian. "He actually loves me. He's just in denial."

"Really." Ian's smile is half-way between amused and not quite so. Sean notices him looking at Viggo--at Viggo's leg brushing against Sean's side--just a second before he himself notices that Viggo's leg is brushing against him; then he notices that Viggo is progressively leaning his weight on him, and is kind of surprised, because he's never noticed before that Viggo is doing this all the time, really.

Touching him.

"Are you joining us for dinner, Ian?" Viggo is asking.

Ian just sighs, stomping his heel over the butt of the cigarette to put it out. "Please don't tempt me--I gave up hanging out with gorgeous heterosexual men years ago. Saves me a lot of heartache."

Viggo laughs at this, and Ian laughs. Viggo's still leaning against Sean's side, and Sean can't help but notice how warm he is. He can't really tell whether he too laughed or not.

When Ian is gone, Viggo leaves Sean's side and goes to sit in the place Ian has just vacated; the evening is suddenly a little colder, and Sean wonders when exactly he's become so used to having Viggo this close.

"Are we going, then?" he asks, his voice shivering a little.

Viggo looks at him, then he lies back against the bench, closing his eyes. "In a while," he says, tiredly.

So Sean fights the cold of the evening by himself, and just waits a while longer.

***

Abby calls him once in a while, to sort out their divorce papers and let him know about Evie; Abby is good, really, because despite everything she wants him in their daughter's life, and Sean is grateful at least for this.

Once she asks about New Zealand: she's heard how beautiful the landscape is over there; and Sean knows what she means, all too well. She'd used to say, in the last weeks of their marriage, that he worked harder for his career than for their relationship. Sometimes, she'd sounded just like Melanie had, when she was bitter about *Sharpe*, about Ukraine. About... just about everything, accusing him of caring about his mates more than he did about her and the girls. And while that hadn't been true, it'd been uncomfortably close to the bone.

He still isn't sure why he and Abby had married in the first place--he suspects she'd had a crush on Sean Bean the movie star, back when they worked together, and he hadn't wanted to see that, at first. He had wanted, probably, only to feel happy again. With someone again. More than anything else--he'd been waiting for that to happen, for that someone to show up, since his marriage with Mel had started crumbling.

But the bottom line was--never get involved with your castmates. It's a lesson Sean's had to learn the hard way.

He just keeps forgetting.

***

It's a quiet evening, rehearsing lines together after dinner, at Sean's place. Night has just settled outside, all is quiet and still. Viggo reads his lines, comments on them; Sean knows Viggo and Peter and Fran are always talking and rewriting and extending scenes, and it's all right: he likes most of Viggo's ideas, especially the ones about Aragorn's relationship with Boromir.

So he can't explain why, all of a sudden, he finds himself annoyed with Viggo--he finds he can't stand the way Viggo talks, his slow slurring blur of softly accented words; he can't stand the way Viggo looks at Sean while he's talking, and then away, as if not really there with him, not really aware of Sean's presence before him.

Sean can't stand the way Viggo just *is*, seated there, relaxed and at ease in Sean's chair, in Sean's home, and this sudden, fierce dislike of Viggo is like a physical blow to him, to his awareness--suddenly Sean is seeing the man across from him and it's not Viggo anymore, his friend Viggo: it's just *people*, another man--a non-Sean being, so totally outside Sean, separated from Sean. Unknown.

Sean finds himself hating this so much, it's all he can do not to stand up and go to him and...

"Am I boring you?"

Slow slurred words, intruding in Sean's distracted consciousness, bringing back reality--the reality of Viggo's steady, unruffled gaze--with a sort of violence. Sean turns wide startled eyes on him, only peripherally aware of doing so.

"I want," Sean says, trailing off.

"Yes?" Viggo is still looking at him. He's looking a little uncertain; Sean thinks Viggo's voice might have quivered, like exhaling an unwilling breath.

"I want to hit you," Sean says, his confusion making the words sound like a question.

Viggo's eyes widen a little, but the rest of him doesn't move; he doesn't say anything.

They stay like this for a while, watching each other. Separated. Apart.

Waiting.

"Why?" Viggo asks in the end.

"I don't know," Sean lies. Then he relents. "I just. It came over me, right now," he tries to explain. "I just... want to."

Viggo listens to this, and keeps silent. He seems to think this over for some time, running his fingertips lightly over the script cover, as if trying to read through them, as if it were printed Braille. He looks fascinated by his own hands, by the feel of paper and plastic under his fingers.

"I think I'll go now," Viggo says at last, looking up.

Sean nods. He wonders whether he should say something, whether he should apologise, or whatever. But Viggo's already on his feet, so Sean stands too, sees him to the door, and then he stands alone in his empty home, in front of the closed door, for a long while.

***

Sean is not a violent man. He's never been, really, even if he got in trouble once, for attacking the supporter of another team after a match. But he was young then, and it was something that never happened again. He doesn't like violence. It's not about violence, he thinks. Not about that.

Not about that, he says again and again under his breath, fists clenching and unclenching over his knees, while he quietly sits up in bed in the dark, waiting for the alarm to go off, for the day to start.

***

"It's not that I don't like you," Sean says a few days later, while they're standing outside Viggo's car, waiting for Dom and Billy to get out of Feet to go to someone's birthday party.

Viggo laughs, leans against the side of the car. There's a curious note in his laughter. "I know," he says.

Sean nods. They've been waiting for a while, now.

"Do you still want to hit me?" Viggo asks, after some time.

"Jesus," Sean says, shocked. They're standing quite close, close enough for Sean to notice a hole in the left sleeve of Viggo's white jumper, where the thread has been washed thin; close enough for him to smell Viggo's aftershave over the usual scents of an autumn evening. Close enough to feel a little warmth seeping into him from Viggo's body.

Sean pushes a fallen leaf around with the point of his boot; it's a large red leaf, shaped like a flame. When he puts his foot down onto it, it creaks softly, as if it were on fire.

"I think I do," he mutters at last.

"Hmm," is all Viggo has to say; then two loudly clamouring hobbits arejoining them, and Viggo is suddenly not so close any more.

***

Cate Blanchett is the most beautiful woman Sean knows--though she's not his kind of woman. She's perfect and aristocratic and pure, and she looks really good sitting in the grass in her faded jeans and white lace top, talking with Viggo.

Sean can't hear what they're saying, because Orlando is talking a mile per minute in his ear, though he's actually addressing Liv, seated next to Sean. Both Liv and Orlando are in their costumes; Sean just got out of his, and is hanging around for no real reason. Viggo could be preparing to go on set or home, since he usually walks around in Aragorn's clothes anyway.

He's actually stitching up one of his coat's detachable sleeves right now, so maybe Cate's giving him advice about that; or maybe he's giving it to her.

Whatever.

They're both blond and tall and elegant, and Sean can't take his eyes away--they're just beautiful to look at.

Though Cate's not really Sean's type.

***

Sparring with Viggo is usually kind of a dangerous experience: he's really good, for someone who's never held a sword before a few months ago, and Sean enjoys going through old-learned, familiar motions with him, feeling his muscles tense and relax, his body warm up. He's heard Bob Anderson say that Viggo's a natural, and Sean agrees: he has to be constantly on his guard, because dirty fighting also comes naturally to Viggo.

Yet today Viggo is not really into it; after a couple of half-hearted moves, he lowers his sword, standing before Sean with his short blond hair and Aragorn's dark green leather coat, just standing, doing nothing.

Sean waits.

"You can, you know," Viggo says.

"What?" Sean has his own sword still lifted, its weight heavy and reassuring in his right hand.

"Hit me," Viggo calmly says. "If you want to."

Sean thinks about this. "I don't..." Then he finally lowers his sword. "Yes," he says. "I want to." He hopes Viggo can read in his face what he can't seem to express in words.

Apparently, Viggo can, because in his slurred, peculiar East Coast accent he says, "It's all right." Viggo's eyes look into Sean's, and there's a strange blue gleaming in them. "I want you to."

Sean feels the world tilt, stand still for an instant on its axis, then start up again.

And nothing is like it was any more.

"I... think I'll do it, then," he says.

Viggo nods. "Yes."

They stand there a little more; then they just gather up their things, and go their separate ways.

***

"You are afraid!"

Boromir's voice comes out all wrong, Sean knows--it should be angry and accusing, not so on edge and desperate--yet he keeps going. He can feel Viggo's body heat under his fist, where he's grabbed Aragorn's tunic, where it opens on his chest.

Aragorn looks at him, angry, scared, trapped. Sean knows all about that.

"All your life, you have hidden in the shadows, scared of who you are... of what you are!"

It just seems wrong, saying it to someone else.

***

It's the silence afterwards, more than anything else, that's really shocking.

Or maybe it's just Sean's ears, still ringing from the loud resounding smack of flesh hitting flesh, that are deafened for a moment.

Sean's right palm is stinging, but not much; like the sound, the pain is already fading away, just an echo, still lingering, not really there anymore.

Viggo's apartment feels strangely empty.

"That wasn't very hard," Viggo says, softly, and Sean knows it's true--despite the bright red handprint blossoming over Viggo's left cheekbone--he knows he held back, at the last moment.

Viggo's eyes are strangely bright, luminous.

Sean swallows dryly. "I can't," he says around the heart beating loudly in his throat, constricting it.

"You can't hit me?" Viggo asks, incredulous.

"Not on your face," Sean says, and for some reason he blushes. "Peter would have my hide."

"Oh. Right." Viggo hesitates for just a second. "Shall I strip, then?" And he proceeds to do so, not bothering to wait for Sean's nod.

Sean can only look at him. It's not as if he hasn't seen Viggo undressing before--they're used to changing into and out of costume together, showering together even. It's not anything like that.

It's something so amazingly different.

Sean can only look at Viggo, furry chest, well-defined abs; then Viggo unbuttons his jeans, unzips them, and suddenly he's naked all over; and still Sean can only look at him.

He feels Viggo's eyes on him, so he looks up, pretending not to have seen how the dark heavy curve of Viggo's cock surged a little under his gaze, how Viggo shifted his legs, strong well-shaped thighs spreading ever so slightly apart.

Sean's mouth feels dry; his right palm has stopped stinging, and it's now pulsing with the rhythm of his heart--a deep slow pulse, growing steadily faster, a guttural drumming beating through him, resounding in the hollow emptiness that is suddenly revealed inside himself.

"All right," Viggo says, standing there, in front of Sean; and he's a whole, separate entity, someone different from Sean, looking at Sean from outside--seeing him as he is.

It seems, to Sean, almost as if Viggo's glowing from the inside.

He searches again for the fury, the rage he'd once felt, and he thinks he can still find it, deep down, if he looks close enough, long enough--pulsing deep in his being, in his veins, in the palm of his right hand. His fingers, his ten fingers, itch.

"This place," he murmurs thickly, still staring, still pulsing. "This film--it's turning everything..." Upside down, he wants to say; "... inside out," is what comes out.

The light that's inside Viggo glows brighter; it shines out of Viggo's eyes, feral, wild. "Yes," Viggo says, a growl, more than a spoken word, scratching his throat.

And just like that, Sean knows they can't wait any longer.

They're grappling, wrestling, fighting. Sean has his hands all over Viggo's body, and he doesn't hold back anymore, and it's not gentle--he hits Viggo everywhere he can, everywhere he touches him--chest, arms, belly, thighs; and Viggo never hits back.

Yet somehow Viggo is all over Sean, touching Sean all over, touching him not with his hands but with his being there--with the reality of his being there, close to Sean, separated from Sean and so close--and it's like a light so intense, he blinds Sean's soul every time a blow falls. It's like he's pouring himself into Sean's being, pouring his presence out to Sean, entering him with every mark, every bruise Sean leaves on Viggo's body: skin to skin, impossible for Viggo to shed, impossible for Sean to erase.

Until at last Sean finds himself lying half on top of Viggo, resting between Viggo's legs, and he's blinded, dazed, pulsing all over, inside out. Viggo is hot under him, hard and soft and hot, burning him through Sean's clothes.

Sean lets his head fall forward, onto Viggo's heaving, sweaty chest; he catches his breath while listening to the fast drumming of Viggo's heart, like a wild thing imprisoned in blood and flesh and bones, a rhythm so fast and uneven that it surprises him how very similar it is to his own, like an echo pulsing through Sean's whole body.

Sean runs trembling fingers over an already darkening bruise on Viggo's arm, slick with perspiration; and he doesn't itch anymore, anywhere.

Viggo shivers under him, a low sigh, or a soft moan, escaping his lips; his hand closes around Sean's wandering fingers, interlacing his own with Sean's.

Viggo is hard under him; Sean is, too. It almost hurts, but it can wait. If only Sean would shift his hips a little, they would touch; they could. But this is not what this has been about, and Sean doesn't move, and Viggo just lies there, unmoving.

It's a kind of violence they endure together.

And for the longest time they rest, touching but not touching--holding hands, pulsing, filled with light.

*****

Sean's left hand is wrapped up in a white bandage to protect his raw knuckles, but Peter takes this remarkably well, since they're filming Lothlórien today and it can pass as a wound Boromir sustained when the cave troll knocked him around.

"I knocked Viggo around," Sean says.

Peter rolls his eyes, commenting distractedly on the British sense of humour while perusing his notes.

Viggo sits down next to Sean, a bit stiffly, just then. He sits close to Sean, doesn't say anything. He could be smiling, but Sean is looking at him sideways and can't really tell.

Dom, who has heard Peter's comment, amiably calls Sean a cunt.

Yeah, Sean thinks, and looks down at his bandaged hand.

Viggo chuckles softly, wincing only a little. "Yeah," he says, brightly, and leans a little closer, unnoticed by the others around them.

He makes Sean smile, after all.

***

This is Boromir's death scene, take something or other, and there's some problem with the cameras. Sean can hear Peter shouting something, there's people running around, but he can't see, because they've been told to hold their positions, it won't be long.

Sean doesn't think they could have moved anyway.

This time it's Viggo who is kneeling between Sean's legs; Sean is the one battered, bruised, even if only for this moment in time, even if only for the cameras. Viggo's arms are resting on Sean's chest, a solid warm weight, heavy, but not uncomfortable.

Viggo's right hand, bloodied and dirty, is lying lightly on Sean's cheek.

Sean is looking up, up into Viggo's eyes, and has no idea what Viggo is thinking, or what Aragorn is--he can never tell the two of them apart, when they're between takes. Viggo's approach to his characters is so different from his own--Sean knows what Boromir is thinking now--well, what he would be thinking, if he wasn't dying but just lying there, on the soft forest floor, Aragorn lying half on top of him, touching him--Sean knows about Boromir, all right.

He doesn't bother about what he himself is thinking; instead he just lies there, as if there were no one else around, and looks up into Viggo's, into Aragorn's, eyes.

They have a remote look in them, and are so bright and filled with light in his dirtied face--remote, and veiled with tears.

Sean wonders how much longer they'll have to wait.

Then the hand on Sean's face is moving, an almost-caress that could be involuntary, but the warm palm is moving across his face, bloodied fingertips finding their way into his, Boromir's, hair. Sean is still looking up, so he sees the tear gathering in the bright eye, rolling down, falling; he feels it splashing onto his cheek, at the corner of his mouth. Viggo's fingers brush it away, gentle, lingering; but Aragorn's eyes are still remote, bright; and Viggo looks down into Sean's eyes, and doesn't smile.

There's a taste blossoming in Sean's mouth all of a sudden--it's metallic and sharp and unreal; he thinks this is what light should taste like.

***

The first time Sean had been fucked, he'd been 22, and just out of his first marriage. It had been hard and painful, not gentle at all--back at RADA, bent over his roommate's desk one night after one wild party.

Hard and painful and so intense, it'd sucked Sean's soul right out of him, leaving him empty, marked. Frightened by how intense it'd been, by the power it had on him. By the hidden parts of himself it'd made him glimpse.

Possessed. Made into something new--someone new. No more separate.

He'd hurt for days afterwards, and had sworn to himself he would never let it happen to him again.

He wonders, while the makeup people flit around him, around Viggo sitting in the chair next to his, taking Boromir's death away from them, if he and Viggo--if they'll ever be friends enough for him to tell Viggo about it.

To tell Viggo that if he had never let it happen again, it hadn't been because of the pain.

***

As soon as the door of Viggo's trailer is locked, Viggo attacks him--because there's really no other word for it--and Sean finds himself pushed up against the door, banging against it with a crash loud enough to shake the whole trailer; not even time to take a breath, and he has Viggo flush against his chest, bright eyes wide and wild. Yes, Sean thinks when Viggo takes his mouth hard enough to draw blood--real blood this time--yes: we've been heading here for weeks now.

We've done with waiting, he thinks then, and his arms come up and crush Viggo to him, fighting not to get free, but to come out on top. He fights hard and he fights for real, and their blood mingles. He doesn't care.

And at last, Sean wins; or Viggo lets him win. He doesn't know; he only knows that Viggo's little sigh of surrender in his mouth is enough to make him crazy; and the deep moan in the back of Viggo's throat makes him wild.

He pushes Viggo through the small room, to the couch; he pushes him down on the cushions and rips buttons and seams in his violence, the violence of his need, their need; until he has Viggo's dark hard cock in his hand, searing his palm, making his mouth dry and his eyes water when he takes it deep into his throat, when he makes Viggo dig his fingers deep into his shoulders, makes him come with a strangled, cut-off cry, Viggo's heels digging hard into the carpet.

There's no trace of bruising on Viggo's skin now; there's no trace of Sean on Viggo. Sean tastes Viggo on his tongue, and sees Viggo watching him, breathing hard, still crazy; sees that this is not enough, for either of them.

Viggo doesn't wait for him to ask, but he gets up, steadying himself by grasping Sean's arms, then turns to kneel on the couch, looking at Sean from over his shoulder; he braces himself against the cushions. And finally, slowly, he nods; turns his head away; leans over.

He bites hard on the cushions when Sean slides in, Viggo's come his only lubricant. Sean feels him stiffen, sees his fists closing so tight he's probably drawing blood where his nails bite into his palms; yet Viggo still arches up, arches back, spreading his legs wide, letting Sean have it all--all of him Sean would take.

It's hard and fast, and then it's over.

Sean comes, and if he cries out Viggo's name, he doesn't know.

The light is deafening.

***

The sun has already set when Sean unlock the trailer's door and steps outside, closing it softly behind him before descending the few steps.

He's left Viggo sleeping, inside, sprawled under an afghan on the stained couch. Sean is almost sure he's not really sleeping, but pretends otherwise. Pretends not to know. It's better this way, surely--it has to be.

There's a sharp, metallic taste in his mouth, and it could be blood, or semen; but it tastes right, familiar: it tastes like something Sean had once used to know and then forgotten. Viggo had kissed him, afterwards--he'd turned over in Sean's arms and had taken Sean's face in his hands, and drawn him down--Viggo had kissed him, barely, lips brushing together, lingering--Viggo had kissed him, gently and caring, and held Sean for long minutes, in the breathing silence, their eyes locked, their bodies entwined.

Sean had felt, curiously, as if they could go on like that, holding to each other like that, looking at each other, for the longest time--and never stop to think of how right it feels.

Just touching.

Then Sean had remembered--had drawn back. Viggo's hands had fallen away, let Sean go. Light had faded; Viggo's breathing had evened out; yet Sean had stayed, waiting, until all the light had gone, and the night had closed in.

Then he'd left.

He's only gone a few paces, now, before he sees Ian sitting on the steps of his own trailer, smoking . Ian greets him with a nod of his head, and Sean can't help but join him. He idly wonders whether in the dim light of the evening his kiss-bruised lips and his disheveled clothing are very conspicuous; then decides they are. Ian is not looking at him, though: he's patting himself down to find his lighter, and when Sean takes the offered cigarette from his pack, he lights it for him.

Sean inhales gratefully, trying his best with his other hand to smooth down unruly tangled hair. They smoke in silence for a few moments, and Sean quietly waits for it.

"Emotionally charged scenes," at length Ian says, conversationally, his deep rough voice carrying far in the night, "are really something." He still doesn't look at Sean, but takes a drag from his own cigarette, letting bright orange ashes glow and die in the growing darkness. "Don't you think?"

Sean doesn't answer. They carry on smoking in peaceful quiet.

When he feels the heat beginning to burn his fingers, Sean looks down at the almost extinguished cigarette. He holds it before his eyes, before letting it fall to the ground. "Daft fucking name," he says, loudly, and even if it's already gone out, he stomps on it anyway, hard. "Fags."

Ian just offers him another.

***

It's the night before Viggo needs to move to the other island to film some of the Rohan scenes. He comes to Sean's place, uninvited, not unexpected. Sean has been waiting for him. For ages, Sean thinks when he opens the door, lets him in.

Viggo stays the night.

Sean looks at him, peaceful and at ease in Sean's bed; Viggo is keeping his eyes closed, yet Sean knows he's not really asleep--he's just still enough for Sean to pretend he is.

Viggo's lying there, dark blond head resting against Sean's belly, one arm cast over both of Sean's legs, the other disappearing under the pillow. He breathes slow and even; he's inside Sean's home, Sean's bed, Sean's life.

And quietly, as the night slowly fades into day, Sean tells him everything about his youth at RADA.

Everything.

***

Abby calls him again one Monday evening, the fifth day of Viggo filming on the other island. Sean gets comfortable to talk with her, and before he knows it, they've been talking for the best part of an hour. Abby says she doesn't remember the last time she'd found him so relaxed and cheerful, and neither can Sean.

"This film really does agree with you," Abby says, and Sean hears her smile in the words, can almost see the lovely way her lips curl gently up into it. Sean is glad they'd gotten involved, after all; he would never go back and change that, and not just because of Evie. He feels a little in love with her still, thinks he'll always be. He tells her so, and makes her laugh. But it's a gentle, trusting laugh that makes him smile in return.

He's almost dozing off in front of the telly, hours later, when it suddenly comes home to him--they're airing some weird talk show and he's been thinking all the time about the way Viggo would laugh at this or snort at that, the outrageous comments he would make at the screen in that slow, slurring voice he has... not really thinking of this, more like a constant commentary on the edge of his consciousness, a blurred background noise... Viggo's voice, soft and familiar in Sean's head. Always there.

And it all builds up until it finally surfaces, drilling a hole of nostalgia so deep and sharp-edged in him, for an instant he can't breath. It's that painful.

He misses Viggo.

He misses him real bad, yet it's not just that. He wants him back.

He wants him *now*.

***

They're sitting in Viggo's living room, rehearsing lines together. Viggo has been back for days, yet they've barely seen each other: their schedules are so different now, Viggo is mostly filming stuff for the other movies--the ones without Boromir.

Yet now they're here, at Viggo's place; and Sean listens to Viggo's low American drawl and feels there's something about it, something that at once keeps him anchored to reality and feeling like he's about to take flight at any moment; he feels caressed by Viggo's lazy speech, and when it stops, he just has to look up--to see himself being watched.

It's a familiar moment, and a thrill runs up Sean's spine. He revels in the realisation, his heart goes wild in his throat.

It's familiar. Not alien. Not separate.

Not any more.

"Am I," he deliberately says, words thick in his mouth, pushing out around his pulsing heart, "boring you?"

Viggo puts his script down. "I want," he says; Sean's mouth goes dry.

"Yes?" he whispers, watches while Viggo comes over, closes the distance between them--comes to him.

"I want to make love to you," Viggo says, leaning down over Sean's chair, bright and warm and familiar all over; and there's no question in his slow, familiar voice. No uncertainty.

"Yes," Sean says. And then he says, "You can." And with his next breath he says, "I want you to."

There's no hurry now, there's no violence; Viggo's fingers brush lightly over Sean's features, learning familiarity all over again.

Viggo is so close, they feel almost like one person.

Sean looks right into Viggo's eyes, leans into Viggo's touch, lets himself be touched; and finally knows he won't be waiting anymore.

*****