They'd been shooting the Amon Sul scene the night before. That was to be Viggo's first fighting scene and Sean guessed it would have been quite taxing on someone who had only got there a couple of days before, was probably still jet-lagged and hadn't had the time to train properly in swordplay the way the rest of the cast had been able to do during the past weeks. He wanted to know how things had gone, he wanted to see Viggo, see if he was allright.

Viggo was almost his same age, Sean thought, and he knew how he would be feeling after a tough, physical scene like that. He winced, thinking of sore, knotted muscles, and still not seeing any trace of Viggo he went looking for PJ.

***

So Viggo was home recuperating, Sean mused after talking to PJ, feeling like a little child being told that his new favorite playmate wouldn't be able to play with him that day. Damn, what it was about the man that made Sean want to disappear alone with him into the wilderness and reappear only a month later, if reappear at all?

Would Viggo be awake? Sean wondered. Would he like company?

He decided to drive by the house the production had rented for Viggo. Viggo would probably be either asleep or bone tired. Sean's mouth curled into a little grin as an idea hit him... Maybe there was a way he could make himself useful to Viggo.

He turned on his heels and headed for the trailer the two of them were sharing with Orlando, slipped in stealthily and started rummaging around among Orlando's stuff until he found the box he was looking for. He sniffed at the bars jealously hoarded in it, swore under his breath something having to do with prissy elves and cloying girlish scents, and selected one of the bars, squirrelling it away and replacing the box where he'd found it.

***

Sean hummed to himself as he drove to Viggo's house, pleased with his plan. At the traffic lights his fingers were tapping impatiently on the steering wheel, itching to go, when he spotted a bakery on the other side of the crossing and a new idea hit him. Breakfast... What a great idea... Sean mentally gave himself a hearty pat on the back: he would bring Viggo breakfast.

***

Balancing his jacket and a box of donuts on one arm, Sean knocked on Viggo's door, loud enough to be heard by someone who was awake already but not loud enough to wake up someone who was sleeping. He didn't have to wait long though, Viggo opened the door almost immediately, wearing sweatpants and a creased shirt and looking even worse than Sean had been expecting.

The skin was stretched taut across his face and there were dark shadows under his eyes, giving him a worn, bruised look. He greeted Sean warmly though, motioning him inside.

As Sean followed Viggo into the house he didn't fail to notice the way Viggo was keeping his movements as small as possible. Just as he was expecting, Sean thought, those muscles must be killing him.

"It's the back, isn't it?" he asked without preamble as they reached the kitchen.

Viggo tried to nod and winced at the movement with a rueful smile.

"The back, but mostly the shoulders and the upper arms muscles. And the jetlag. And a thousand thoughts about puzzling out who Aragorn is. All conjuring to keep me awake. It is as if shooting the Amon Sul scene has drained what energies I had left after flying in on such a short notice," Viggo sighed. "I'm feeling... emptied.."

"Then I guess we'll have to fill you up again. I've brought you some breakfast. Do you have any coffee going already?" Sean asked, huffing a bit when Viggo shook his head and winced in pain again.

With gentle hands he pushed Viggo down on a chair at the kitchen table and set up the coffeemaker himself, opening the box of assorted donuts he'd brought and smiling as Viggo cautiously leaned forward to inhale the scent of chocolate and cinnamon.

Setting a mug of steaming coffee in front of Viggo, Sean pushed the box towards him.

"Eat, you'll feel a bit better when you have something in your stomach, I promise. And when you've had breakfast I'll give your shoulders and back a good rub. I've brought something for that too."

Viggo looked up, his blue eyes gazing into Sean's green ones then crinkling at the corners in a smile.

"Thank you Sean," he replied softly. "This is the best offer I've had since I've arrived in New Zealand. Everyone's been very friendly but they're all so young they make me miss my son even more." His hand reached out across the kitchen table to give Sean's a warm squeeze, then he grinned impishly with an unreadable gleam in his eyes. "And if whatever you're planning to do to my back works, you can ask just about anything of me and it's yours."

Sean's eyes narrowed as he wondered if it was him imagining things or if Viggo's words had indeed carried hint of a hidden meaning. That kind of hidden meaning.

He tried to search Viggo's face for clues but it was now bent down on the cardboard box to select a donut, so he had to content himself with watching like a mother-hen as Viggo wolfed down three donuts and two mugs of coffee. His eagle eye however got sidetracked when Viggo, finally satisfied, leaned back into the chair and started licking the cinnamon-sugar mixture off his fingers.

"Better?" Sean asked, his beautiful voice sounding strained, his green eyes hypnotized by a bit of chocolate glaze sticking to Viggo's upper lip.

"Much better, thank you Sean," Viggo replied, licking his lips but missing the chocolate smear. "Hey, what's wrong? Have I grown two noses? You're looking at me strangely.."

Sean's answer was in the same strained voice. "You've missed a bit of chocolate on your lip."

"Have I?" Viggo asked, opening his eyes in a wide innocent look. He snaked his tongue out and searched for the stray chocolate as Sean stared mesmerized. "Am I tidy now?" he inquired.

Sean swallowed with difficulty and murmured "You'll do."

"So, what is it that you're planning to do to my back?" Viggo asked.

Sean colored slightly and mentally chided himself. He must stop finding hidden innuendo in every word Viggo spoke, he must stop reading every word the poor man said as a double entendre.

"Well, I thought your back could do with a rub, to unknot the muscles a bit. I pinched one of Orlando's massage bars, he's always raving about how fabulous they are, how they work like magic on his back, so I figured one might help you..."

Viggo looked puzzled. "A massage bar? What's that?"

"Here, look," Sean said reached for his jacket and got from its pocket a booklet and an oval shaped thing wrapped in a tissue, pushing this towards Viggo.

Viggo unwrapped the thing, turned it around in his hand and sniffed at it.

"It looks disgusting but it smells good," he commented. The thing had the appearance of a small bar of soap and was a sickly green color, with its surface marked by black dots. "So how does it work?"

"I chose the one that smelled better, believe me.. Well, make that the one that smelled less exotic and sissy," Sean explained defensively as he searched in the booklet for information. "Ah, here it is. This is the greenish one so it's the one called Wiccy Magic Muscles. It says here that it's good for sportspeople and for muscles that have been put to hard work. It should sort of melt on warm skin and lube it up for the massage."

"Lube it up, eh?" said Viggo, while Sean mentally swore at himself as he wondered if that was really a leer he was seeing on Viggo's face or if that was just a bit of wishful thinking on his part. "And what are the black dots?" Viggo asked.

Sean hid his nose into the booklet, grateful for the distraction, and read out aloud.

'This massage bar has a surface layer of aduki beans which feel like little fingertips when the bar is rubbed into your muscles'

Viggo laughed, a wicked little laugh that sent ripples all over Sean's skin.

"Sorry Sean, but this is just too much... Beans that feel like little fingertips.. Why should I use those when I can have Sean Bean's very own fingertips rubbing into my muscles.." he smiled at Sean and reached out to take one of Sean's hand and stroke his fingertips. "A little rough," he remarked. "but I'd rather have these touching me than those little black things."

Sean shivered under Viggo's touch, little shocks of electricity shooting from his fingerpads up his arms and taking his breath away. He was still vibrating with them when Viggo resumed talking.

"Anyway, this sounds terribly good. What about seeing if it works?" Viggo rose without waiting for Sean to answer. "I think we'd better do this upstairs on the bed," he said, leaving Sean to stare after his retreating back, blushing furiously.

***

When Sean got upstairs Viggo was standing by the side of the bed and was unbuttoning his shirt. The state of the bed, with its bunched, twisted sheets was testimony to Viggo's fruitless attempts at getting some rest.

Sean watched, his mouth going dry, as Viggo removed his shirt revealing a beautifully sculpted chest covered in dark blond hair.
Sean watched, holding his breath, as Viggo's hands hesitated at the waistband of his sweatpants then stopped.

Viggo looked up at Sean and grinned, and again there was this little gleam in his eye as he toyed with the drawstring of his sweatpants.

"You don't need to work down there, do you? All functioning properly there, I assure you. It's the shoulders and upper back that you should concentrate on."

Sean nodded like a marionette, still trying to cope with the vision of Viggo's chest, lost in following the trail of the hair that covered Viggo's belly before disappearing down into that territory that had been declared forbidden.

Viggo crawled on the bed and laid down on his belly, his arms limp at his sides. His only visible eye winked at Sean as he spoke.

"Well? Are you waiting for a formal invitation to join me up on the bed and do my back?"

Sean blushed as he kicked off his loafers and climbed onto the bed, straddling Viggo's body.

He palmed the massage bar and stared at Viggo's smooth, muscled back, thinking to himself that he'd never seen something so beautiful and silky. Christ, just looking at it was enough to make his cock stir. He took a deep calming breath and started running the bar up and down Viggo's back, keeping the pressure very light.

The warmth of the skin seemed to melt the stuff quickly and the bar immediately started gliding smoothly over flesh, releasing a spicy, intoxicating scent of cinnamon and peppermint. The flesh took on a glossy sheen as Sean kept moving the bar around, until back and shoulders and arms were coated in the stuff. Sean didn't stop though, as if dreading the moment when the bar would be gone, completely melted on Viggo's flesh, and his own fingers would have to replace it.

He was totally engrossed in a mental worship of Viggo's skin and Viggo's voice caught him by surprise when he spoke.

"Smells nice.. Relaxing.. Invigorating.. I think Tolkien's athelas must feel a bit like this.." Viggo was taking deep breaths and this was making the flesh of his back rise and fall like the tide under Sean's gaze. "But I don't think that the stuff is going to work magic on my muscles all by itself, Sean. I think it is time for your fingertips to works some magic of their own.."

Sean's hand stopped his movement on Viggo's back. The massage bar was now reduced to a thin layer, a final minimal barrier keeping skin from touching skin. He knew he had to let it go, it had been his idea after all to offer Viggo a back rub. What he had not been expecting was just how deep this would be affecting him.

He bit his lip and rubbed what was left of the bar between his hands, coating them well with the buttery stuff before laying them on Viggo's back.

The flesh felt warm and solid, the oils and vegetal butters from the massage bar giving Viggo's skin the thick but smooth feel of raw silk.
Sean began moving his hands tentatively over the muscles, stroking more than massaging, until Viggo sighed and spoke again, his words half-muffled by the mattress.

"Sean, I am not made of glass and I am not going to break, you know. The way you're touching me is highly pleasurable, but right now I need something else from you. Please... Do it. Hard."

Sean's brain received and processed Viggo's request correctly, sending a message to his hands to start giving Viggo's muscles a good, hard rub.
Sean's cock, however, opted to capture and process Viggo's plea to do it and do it hard in a totally different sense and jumped happily at the prospect.

Caught between the two, Sean gritted his teeth and began stroking firmly into the knotted flesh, his fingertips working the muscles like dough, his thumbs rubbing and pressing along the spine, then moving up to the corded neck and to the muscles outlining Viggo's forearms.

After a while Viggo exhaled something that was a cross between a soft, throaty sigh and a pleased purr.

"It's making my skin tingle and feel very very warm.." The words whispered into the mattress as if they were a secret.

Viggo's flesh was as a matter of fact feeling warmer under his hands, Sean thought. The aromatic oils were probably heating it up and the warmth would help loosen the tightness in the muscles. He renewed his efforts, trying to keep his hands on track, though they were itching to travel down, down to where in his movements Viggo had made the sweatpants slide down so that the waistband was now riding the line where his buttocks swelled out from his lean back.

Sean longed to cup those buttocks, fill his hands with them, trace their rise with his fingertips. Would they be pale, untouched by the sun? Or golden bronze like the rest of Viggo's body?

As Sean was lost in thought, Viggo's breathing slowed down, changing into breaths so small his ribcage barely moved, and his body went soft under Sean's hands.

Sean glided his hands one last time along Viggo's back, a caress more than a rub.

"There," he said softly, pleased with his job and with the way Viggo seemed to be relaxing. "Feeling better?"

"Viggo?" he asked again when he got no reply.

Sean bent down close and realized Viggo had fallen asleep. That was exactly what Viggo needed, Sean thought. Rest. So why was he feeling so damn disappointed?

He sighed, undecided. He didn't want to leave Viggo, he wanted to be there for him in case he woke up and needed something..

Who was he trying to fool? Sean mocked himself. He just wanted to be near Viggo and was looking for an excuse to stay. Well, he would just stay a while to make sure Viggo was all right and resting quietly and then he would leave.

He propped himself up against the headboard, picked up a magazine that Viggo must have thrown down on the floor during his sleepless night and began idly leafing through it, stealing a glance at Viggo now and then.
Just to make sure he was sleeping comfortably of course...