Summary: It must have happened when they were filming Lothlorien...

Rated: PG-13

Categories: Actor RPS Pairing: Sean/Viggo

Warnings: None

Challenges:

Series: Thought and Memory

Chapters: 2 Completed: Yes

Word count: 2467 Read: 1425

Published: 06 Aug 2009 Updated: 06 Aug 2009

It must have happened when they were filming Lothlorien, when his words had shaped a bubble of stillness around him, around the man in the worn shirt and tunic.

One day our paths will lead us there, he had said.

And he had reached out impulsively--the movement had not been cued, not called for, but had been scripted, suddenly, by some deep need inside him--and he had touched the other man upon the wrist, felt the solidity of bone and flex of tendon and muscle under his fingers. And just as tangible had been the weight of the other's gaze upon him, full-fixed upon his face, wondering and sad.

And the Tower Guard shall take up the call, that the Lords of Gondor have returned.

* * *

Sean wandered around the set, at loose ends for the time being and not liking it. He was out of costume, and the blue jeans and shirt felt foreign to him, without substance, utterly wrong to some part of him, as though he wore clothes belonging to some other man.

You're cracking up, Bean, he told himself. You never think like this.

But he had been thinking since that day, when he had looked into the King's eyes--Aragorn's eyes, Viggo's eyes--and had seen what he had seen. There had been an unnerving clarity in that moment, in the expression on his friend's face, in the blue gaze that had been like ocean and sky.

Sean had seen himself, God help him, heard his own words echo in his ears, and still now he could recall what Viggo's skin had felt like against his, the way his flesh had tingled at the contact. That exposure had disconcerted him--scared the bloody hell out of you, more like--and so he had sat, suspended in his own desperation, and felt Viggo withdraw from him, and seen the fear and sad reserve on Aragorn's face.

It was absolutely irrational, he thought fiercely now, kicking at the grass under his feet. Abso-bloody fucking-lutely irrational, in fact. He wasn't the sort of actor who descended completely into his characters, but now, since Lorien, he found he could not think of that scene without a sharp twist of pain, pain in part for Boromir, and pain in part for himself.

But where did that come from? Sean fought the urge to scoff, or snort, or do anything to draw attention to himself. It wasn't like he was what... rejecting you? And it wasn't like you were declaring your undying love or anything.

There was an element of untruth in that, one becoming impossible to ignore. He replayed that moment over and over, and always, always he could picture Viggo's face, feel the actual presence of the man, as clearly as if they still sat there, inches from each other... And he felt, undimmed, the hot, fierce rise of desperation, something like arousal, but reaching deeper than that, deeper than he thought maybe anything he'd yet experienced.

He heard, through layers of his distraction, shouts and catcalls--the younger set at it again, he realized--and the alarmed yelp of a technician, a fake-irritated "Get that thing out of my face, damn it!" and more laughing.

Them and their damned video recorder. He needed to make himself scarce.

Accordingly, Sean began to skulk back in the direction of his trailer, but he had not made it ten steps before he heard Viggo calling him. Part of him, the part that couldn't deal with any of this, wanted desperately to ignore Viggo, but Viggo had the kind of voice he knew he would never forget: low but absolutely clear, carrying to Sean's ears and turning him around, an irresistible force.

Viggo did not say anything as he walked up, clad like Sean in jeans and a dark shirt that seemed wrong for him now--he moved like Aragorn moved, long-striding and purposeful, and his expression still had something of Aragorn in it, a distance across which Sean could not reach.

And he had tried, in Lorien, to do that.

"You OK?"

"'Course," Sean grunted, being caught off-guard and answering a half-beat too late. He realized suddenly that he had been staring, but could not bring himself to look away.

Viggo offered him a tentative half-grin, little more than a slight twist of his lips. "Are you making your escape too?"

"All I want to do is tell them to turn down the volume... and quit harassin' people with that fucking machine of theirs," Sean answered, managing a grin of his own. "Guess it's a sign I'm getting old."

Viggo laughed, that low, smooth laugh of his, and in that instant the distance melted away like ice. "We're both getting old," he agreed, and now he smiled truly this time. "Come on... let's make ourselves scarce."