Viggo, Sean thinks, likes to exist in half-light.
There are many things about the man lying next to him that he's come to know, and many are realizations that surprise him. For all his lazy good humor and methodical way of doing things, Viggo is a perpetual novelty. Even as they lie in the pool of golden light that is cast from the ceiling lamp (the only light in Viggo's room, save the uncertainty of the moon and stars through the window), there is an endless invention to him, thoughts that come from nowhere, or variations on a familiar theme, like now. Now, when his fingers are tracing across Sean's chest - English, Elvish for all he knows - but the movement is not arousing, as it so often is with Viggo, but soothing, contemplative, touch for the sake of touch, and Sean can revel in it.
"Say something," Viggo murmurs again. His breath is hot where it moves across Sean's chest, stirring the fine hairs.
Sean turns to look at him, raises an eyebrow. "What's that, then?"
"You heard me," Viggo says. The fingers on his body do not stop moving. "Say something."
Obediently, Sean begins to talk, though he can't quite understand what Viggo loves in a voice that makes bloody a couple os too long and always sounds like he's just woken up. But talk he does, and it's all nonsense stuff, stories about Sheffield and some of his mates from school, his mother's garden, home tales he thought he'd forgotten until he'd spoken them, the kind that make your heart twist a bit, thinking about how far away all that is, how many years. There's a suspicion of tears in his voice; he can hear it getting deeper, his accent more pronounced, and he swallows it down hoping Viggo hasn't noticed. Slim chance, because behind the indolence Viggo is perceptive and merciless, and he'll hunt Sean through half-truths and evasions until he can't hide anymore.
But Viggo's fingers are slowing, settling near the hollow between Sean's collarbones. Sean risks a glance down and to the side, and the keen blue eyes are shut, and the breath against his skin is now slow with the rhythm of sleep. Over Viggo's shoulder, the digital clock flashes its crimson warning; Sean, too, should be asleep - they've been given a respite, four days Peter's given to his battered cast to recover, and every hour counts, the clock reminds him.
And they need it, Sean decides. Viggo needs it. And Viggo knows it too; the first thing he'd done when they'd gotten home was shave away the mask of Aragorn's beard, and now the wire-fine scar that runs down his upper lip is visible, pale against golden skin. Viggo's head rests against Sean's shoulder, forehead just touching, and looking down, Sean can let his gaze linger on the strange diagonal mark, his thoughts caught pleasantly between the erotic and simple observation.
It's very thin, old, a relic of youthful indiscretion; you only see the indent of it when there's strong shadow falling across Viggo's face to throw it into relief. There is always the hint of it under Aragorn's beard, where the hair grows white, but to see the naked flesh is different. The eyes can be arrested by it, just looking - caught by the sudden thought is that a scar?, and the need to look again, more closely. Looking at Viggo's face, the strong features, planes and shadows of cheekbones and jaw, the scar should seem a flaw, like a running crack in marble... just as the bumps, bruises, and scrapes that mar the rest of his body.
Sean turns a bit, maneuvers Viggo's sleeping form so he's lying on his back and Sean can look over him. The pain is sympathetic, what he feels as his eyes rove over his lover's body, taking in the bruises and cuts, the blemishes that paint hideous rainbows on golden skin. Some are fading, less angry, but there are deep bruises - the doctors had said maybe deep tissue bruises, and he should watch it (you are a middle-aged man, not an... what did you say? 'Eighty-seven-year-old Numenorean', Mr. Mortensen), but Viggo rarely does. Most are on his ribcage - he'd been lucky to escape bruised ribs - and one on his chest, the one Sean had tried to soothe earlier that night in his own rough way.
There are more lower down, a nasty series Viggo had earned in some other stunt Sean can't recall. They're there, and it's a moment's work to push away the sheet, to take inventory of the results of the past two weeks of filming. Viggo's left hand is now resting on his own chest, draped there carelessly; Sean takes Viggo's hand in both of his, splays the fingers, wincing at the half-healed cuts and scrapes, the knobs of bruises on the knuckle and the back of Viggo's wrist. He remembers shaking Viggo's hand the first day they met, feeling the long, clever fingers wrap around his; there are new calluses there now, in addition to the broken skin, and like the scar on Viggo's face they seem like they shouldn't be there. Not on such a body, not on such skilful, eloquent hands.
Except they are there, and Sean knows they should be.
Viggo needs the pain - not because he enjoys it, but because he needs to take it in, overmaster it, make it a part of him the way pain is part of Aragorn, wandering King. He needs the pain like he needs his sword, Aragorn's long hair and beard, the mask of reserve. And over all his body, his fine, beautiful body - Sean aches, thinking of it - the bruises march, shouting out that need in red and black and blue. Too brazen, too evident, what they say of the weakness of flesh, too little maybe of the strength of the man who wears them.
It's like looking at Viggo's photos, which are too strange for Sean sometimes, looking at something familiar twisted into a new shape, a bizarre metamorphosis, alchemy of the lens and light and Viggo's imagination. In the dim light, on the rumpled bed, the scar, the bruises old and new, the broken fingernails are clearer, unnaturally sharp to Sean's eyes, urgent almost. Look at me, Viggo's body says to him. And Sean always looks, not with lust - though that is ever-present, a banked flame deep in the pit of his stomach - but with eyes that have seen what few others have.
Sean is there when it's too much, when the whirlpool of Viggo's thoughts sucks him in too deeply. The map of pain that is his body becomes a surface across which Sean writes pleasure, making meaning with hands and mouth and the caress of flesh on flesh, wanting to draw Viggo out of deep, dark places, the places where he can't follow. It works, is the wonder; he can pull Viggo up out of himself and into the real world, and Sean doesn't know whether to be amazed or frightened at this, or grateful or humble.
But now Viggo is drowsing, naked, unbarriered; there's no Aragorn haunting him now, no failure at Amon Hen, no poetry or painting or anything, only rest, and maybe healing for a time. He never sleeps, is the problem, and even in his dreams tends to twitch restlessly, but now whatever exhaustion weighs on him pulls him down so hard there's no strength left to resist. The body against Sean's is loose and relaxed, still coated with dry sweat and the scent of sex from earlier that night, and desire tugs at Sean as he inhales, a thread running through his tiredness.
And this is another novelty, how easily lust and simply being can blur when he's with Viggo. For Sean, most of the time, there is lust or there isn't, and the sensations of body and mind are both crystal clear. Now he can feel the old need of Viggo (it's not old - how long have they known each other? - but seems so, it's so familiar) stirring in him, the need to taste and touch like waves or a slow tide ebbing and flowing. But mixed in with it is quietness, something almost proprietary in watching Viggo sleep, that needs nothing more than the sight to satisfy it.
He wants to keep looking, because he can't paint and a camera can't capture what he sees right now. It can capture form, the light, but not the feeling that sets both confusion and tranquility stirring in him, what the vividness of the scar, the bruises, does to him.
He wants to keep looking, but there's a change; Viggo shifts, sighs, stretches against him, sinuous muscle. And before Sean is quite ready for it, Viggo's made the transition from sleep to wakefulness, and sleepy blue eyes peer knowingly out at him from beneath heavy lids, and the low, smoke-laced voice whispers a greeting.
"Hey, yourself," Sean mumbles, loving the low, calming drone of Viggo's voice, the brush of accent that's always heavier when he's sleepy. "Thought you were asleep... you were out like a light, mate."
"For a bit," Viggo says. "Thought you were sleeping."
"Nah." Sean becomes aware, a moment too late, that his right hand is playing over Viggo's jaw, his chin, and his thumb is stroking his lips lightly, arching up over the line of the scar. Viggo shudders against him, sighs a bit, and turns his face into the caress. "Couldn't," Sean says, hypnotized by the response.
Viggo's eyes are still half-shut, dark blue under his lashes. "Why not?"
By way of answer he kisses Viggo, and familiar lips move against his lazily, soaking up the kiss, drinking it in. Sean licks across the scar, tastes the salt where sweat has dried, the silky seam of the old wound. There are fine lines all across Viggo's face, wind-lines, sun-lines, laugh-lines; they have an animation of their own, when Viggo smiles - the crinkle of skin between his eyes, flesh reforming around mobile lips as he smiles. Sean wants to follow these lines, trace the paths of them, and he does; Viggo lives on breath and words, but Sean is touch and fire.
He wants badly to travel lower, explore the lines of muscle and rib and bone. Viggo's got a way with words, not him, and when they're together Sean feels foolish trying to say what he thinks and feels, and settles for touch instead. But Viggo doesn't need reminding now, doesn't need the pleasure and pain of hands over sore muscles and the ache of bruises. So Sean gathers questing, broken hands to him, kisses the abused flesh - there's the coppery hint of old blood, a reflexive twitch and catch of Viggo's breath at the contact - and pulls Viggo to him for a last kiss.
There is understanding in Viggo's eyes when they break apart, but also exhaustion - the blue depths, usually clear like still water, are cloudy with it, hazed over. He rolls onto his side, pulling Sean with him, and Sean pulls the blanket up over them both. There's the typical moment of shifting to get comfortable, Sean's right arm wrapped around Viggo, their fingers tangled together, and then in the circle of light there is silence.
Summary: Viggo, Sean thinks, likes to exist in half-light.
Rated: PG-13
Categories: Actor RPS Pairing: Sean/Viggo
Warnings: NoneChallenges:
Series: NoneChapters: 1 Completed: Yes
Word count: 1900 Read: 688
Published: 06 Aug 2009 Updated: 06 Aug 2009