Viggo Mortensen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
honestlyyours) wrote2011-12-27 12:40 am
honestlyyours) wrote2011-12-27 12:40 am
we are the same but our lives have moved along, and the third one between-
There's one thing Viggo is good at, and that's waiting. He waited twenty years to get a big break with his acting. He waited more than a decade for Sean. It's just- in Lord of the Rings, during the filming, he falls in love with Boromir. Aragorn didn't, not really. Aragorn is complicated, full of obligations and weight and kingship and Arwen and a completely different view of love and what love is. Aragorn belongs to the world of Tolkien entirely, and he cannot fall in love with Boromir, not like that. But Boromir has left an indelible mark on Aragorn- and on Viggo, and Viggo falls for Boromir.
He falls for his nobility, for his burdens, for his strength. He falls in love with the way that Boromir's hand shakes in Lothlorien, in the look in his eyes as he dies, in his passion and fierceness when he speaks at the Council. It's all jumbled up, completely out of chronological order, but that's filming, isn't it? Viggo thinks he falls for Boromir, but at the same time he's with Sean, and Sean isn't Boromir. He snaps out of Boromir's character so easily that Viggo is left chasing dust, but at the same time he thinks that the passion he sees, the way that the words tumble out of Boromir's throat when he's talking about something he cares about- that's all in Sean too. And he thinks he loves the way Sean's mouth looks when wrapped around a bottle of beer; loves the way his hands curl and fly when he's taking out a cigarette to smoke. He falls in love with the planes of Sean's face when he takes a drag, blue-grey smoke all around him, and Viggo takes pictures and throws them all out because none of them capture the essence of it.
And Viggo falls, very quietly, very subtly, for Sean, and he thinks it's half-Boromir, half-Sean, and it really shouldn't matter, because he's not young anymore, and there's no real rush. Then Sean goes off to Berlin to film a science fiction movie, and Viggo sees him after the Fellowship of the Ring premiere and there's something different about him. A bit of desperation, his rough edges sharpened even further, a feverish look in his eyes. He wonders what the hell happened, but it's a slow-burning fire. He keeps track of Sean throughout the years, watching his movies, loving his movies, and falls in love every single time with the way Sean's tongue curls around the words. When Troy comes, he visits the premiere ostensibly for Orlando and spends the whole of it watching Sean. It was then that he categorised the fifty-three different shades of gold in Sean's hair.
Four years ago, they met at Heathrow. A coincidence, really. He's in a whirlwind, promoting Eastern Promises, and he'd met Sean. The feverish look in Sean's eyes seem to have set up and took up residence and started requesting for permanent residency, and Sean's hand was hot in his skin. Viggo becomes Aragorn for a little while, but what they do isn't what Aragorn do, and Aragorn never wanted to fuck Boromir. That's Viggo, through and through, for Sean and Boromir both, and he knows that he's not what Sean is looking for. Sean is looking for someone who immerses even deeper, who becomes completely, who erases himself entirely. Viggo's not like that. He's too centered, too calm, to patient. Sean looks for a thunderstorm and all he finds is a smooth, gentle glade.
Now Viggo starts looking, starts listening. It's not urgent. Just off to the side. It takes a little effort, and he starts reading tabloids online- and when he does, it becomes a little clearer. He doesn't get an invitation to Sean's wedding, but he's heard of Georgina, and when Christian Bale explodes on the set, everything becomes a little sharper, a little clearer. Berlin, a science fiction movie. A beautiful face. Viggo has met Christian before, years and years ago. He has met him, but he knows nothing of him. Viggo is an artist, with a strong eye. He's a photographer. He knows masks when he sees them, and Christian has always been about masks.
It's a little disappointing, a little anti-climatic. Now he knows, so what? He can't sweep Sean up into his arms, and he doesn't want to do that. The kind of poetry he writes doesn't talk much about sweeping romances. Viggo is patient still, and he waits. He works more, and waits, and dates a little, here and there. He laughs with Henry, and he's proud of his son, and he talks to Exene. She's ill, and he helps with that too. He stays in Idaho and takes care of horses and watches Sean and Christian from across the ocean. Bits and pieces of Sean starts to appear in his poetry, in his paintings- but it's fine, really, because no one notices amidst the abstraction.
He works, and he waits. Game of Thrones come and go, and Viggo is startled at how old Sean seems, how he seems weighed down, barely able to breathe. Viggo looks into the mirror and he sees the white in his brow, and suddenly he thinks that- he's running out of time. He's patient, but he's running out of time and it's been twelve years. Twelve years of waiting, and Sean doesn't know a thing about it. Viggo traces the white in the mirror and thinks of a painting, of a blue sky that's streaked with darkness and dotted with hidden starts. But he can't not continue to wait. Sean divorces Georgina. Christian exists. He waits, but he's getting a little antsy about it.
Viggo talks about it, in the interviews. He's afraid. He's running out of time. He's getting old. But he never really says what he's afraid of- and he's glad he hadn't, when the news come out, and Christian starts to tease the press. It's not very nice of him, and Viggo knows truth when he sees it. Since Equilibrium. Since 2001. Sean brightens up, laughs more. He loses the weight he gained for Ned Stark, and loses the years he gained with it. Viggo watches him during the Scream Awards; watches him surrounded by his girls; watches him laugh in a way he hadn't in a long time. And for the first time, he wonders how he can still love this man.
Then the spotlight angles against Sean's hair. A split-second flash, his face is out-of-focus as Viggo slams down on the pause button on the video. Fifty-three shades of gold, and now at least three shades of silver. Viggo's next painting is full of those shades, and he tries over and over to try to recreate the exact differences that he can see, but paint is a terrible mistress and he's more frustrated than not. It's alright. It's not a painting he can sell or display anyway, because it has his heart all over it, and god knows he's obvious enough.
Viggo hates the Oscars, but he has another nomination, and Sean has one. It's a little strange. Viggo's mind makes the strangest leaps. Sean is nominated for his role in David, and Viggo has David Cronenberg to thank for his nomination. Both for Supporting Actors. Sigmund Freud would probably love to have Lucas Shaw on his chair. The press is going crazy over it, what with the Rings connection. Viggo laughs and congratulates him on the phone when they talk, and he drives to LA, more than a little pensive. He hasn't seen Sean in years. Not since the Empire Awards in 2009. It's been three years.
He's running out of time. It's been thirteen years now, and Viggo wonders if he should still wait, or if he should make his move. Christian has laid his claim all over Sean in one movie, tying the two of them together. But Viggo has his mark too, even though he shares it with seven others. Nine, written on Sean's shoulder, written on his arm. It binds them together, this Fellowship.
He thinks he should meet Christian. If only as Christian Bale and Viggo Mortensen, rather than Edward Rosier and Caspar Goodwood. It'll be interesting. Viggo can already see Christian's colours, all blacks and greys and cut-ruby red, glistening and splashed across a painting. The paint has to be wet. It's worthless when it's dry, the meaning all gone, the rubies turned to blood, and that's not the point.
Viggo calls Sean, and it hits his voicemail. That's alright, and he leaves a message. He's staying at a friend's LA flat. (He wonders if Sean is living with Christian, with Christian's wife and daughter.) He wants to meet. For a drink, maybe before the Oscars, because he's missed laughing with Sean; missed being called 'filthy humans' and grouped together by Orlando. The Men of the Fellowship. Viggo-and-Sean. A bond together that they have inked into their skin. Just the two of them, like the kiss that Aragorn had laid upon Boromir's forehead, a benediction from the King to his Steward.
He wonders if Sean thinks of the same thing. If he misses the same things. If he misses New Zealand. It's 2012, Viggo thinks. Maybe it's time to stop waiting.
He wonders if Sean's hair still has the same fifty-three shades.
***
If Viggo had waited for other people's opinions to validate his work to think that what he did meant something, he would've committed suicide a long time ago.
That was a sobering thought. Rather amusing too, actually. There were still vultures outside, circling around the bar - around LA in general - waiting for the tiniest flicker, the smallest giveaway that Viggo Peter Mortensen, nominee (and loser) of the 73rd Academy Award for Best Supporting Award begrudges Sean Mark Bean, winner of the same award, his victory. Well, the vultures could continue to circle. They could keep running around in circles, because Viggo wasn't going to give them what they wanted.
Sean had won. Of course Sean had won. If anyone else had won, Viggo would have stormed out of the Oscars in a towering rage. Even if it was himself. Especially if he was himself. Freud was good, he felt good about the performance, but after what Sean had done...
Perhaps he was a damn masochist, but Viggo couldn't help himself - he watched David, and he came away nearly clawing at his own skin, feeling the dirt that Lucas had accumulated from too much exposure to David Allen stick onto himself. He could feel it along with Sean, the corruption of a good man and the way he had fallen all the way to hell. It was choking and exhilarating and Sean had barely needed to say anything for his performance to carry through with such weight and power. Every single move, every single breath. Viggo had watched Sean carry Boromir's despair and wear it as a tight-fitting cloak with just one turn of the head and one look into his eyes. He had watched with the one and only front-row seat how Sean portrayed Boromir's final acceptance of his King, and had kissed his forehead in absolution while entirely-unplanned tears had coursed down his cheeks.
Viggo couldn't give him a standing ovation during the performance because it was in a goddamn cinema, and it's a shame that no one does that anymore. But there's the Oscars, and the announcement of Sean's name, and Viggo didn't care about anyone's opinions. He stood and applauded for all that he was worth, turning to look at Sean with a blindingly bright grin because goddamn did he deserve it, and Viggo wasn't biased at all, and he knew from one glance that Christian Bale was reaching out, grabbing onto Sean's jacket and pulling him close, hugging him tight, and he was smiling in a way that he hadn't even smiled during his own win - Viggo watched that, too, because he was thorough - and he had let Sean go.
Had turned to look at Viggo through his lashes, across the rows of seats, head tilted to the side.
Because see- Viggo didn't tell Sean after all. Not during that drink one day before the show. Not during that first reunion, full of backslapping and hugs in that too-public hotel lobby, three days before the Oscars. The words had somehow gotten stuck in his throat, or perhaps they were lost, half-formed and tossed away even before he could complete then. The edges of the words were pressing against his tongue, heavy and weighted and he couldn't say anything, and it was ridiculous because he was fifty-four (one number greater than the shades of Sean's hair) and he should be an old hand with this. He should know what to do. It had been thirteen years.
He didn't. Not at all. Viggo had clapped his hands red and raw, his breath coming too fast and too hard, his head spinning from the adrenaline and the exhilaration and David and Michael had given him such odd looks, because he seemed more excited by the fact that he had lost to Sean Bean. But it was Sean, and during the commercial break Viggo had tried to explain it to David haltingly, with broken words and fragmented sentences and waving hands and stilted shoulders, and David had gotten it and grinned, giving him a little headbutt right in front of everyone and it was a little strange, thirteen years out of time. That, and the fact that David Cronenberg had watched the DVD extras for Lord of the Rings.
(Keira and Michael didn't get it, but Vincent did, and texted him about it. It was a marvellous example of how things had gone every single time, with this movie.)
He had texted Sean after the show, the first moment he could. Told him the bar, told him he would be here, and here he was. He wasn't waiting for a reply. There might be messages, there might be not. Viggo didn't want to know, not from a machine. He wanted to hope because he would see Sean's figure at the door. He wanted to feel the sharp disappointment and the tiny flare of unquenchable hope if he didn't. Viggo had nothing else to do tonight. All he would be doing would be waiting for Sean.
And that, he had enough practice. Thirteen years' worth.
He falls for his nobility, for his burdens, for his strength. He falls in love with the way that Boromir's hand shakes in Lothlorien, in the look in his eyes as he dies, in his passion and fierceness when he speaks at the Council. It's all jumbled up, completely out of chronological order, but that's filming, isn't it? Viggo thinks he falls for Boromir, but at the same time he's with Sean, and Sean isn't Boromir. He snaps out of Boromir's character so easily that Viggo is left chasing dust, but at the same time he thinks that the passion he sees, the way that the words tumble out of Boromir's throat when he's talking about something he cares about- that's all in Sean too. And he thinks he loves the way Sean's mouth looks when wrapped around a bottle of beer; loves the way his hands curl and fly when he's taking out a cigarette to smoke. He falls in love with the planes of Sean's face when he takes a drag, blue-grey smoke all around him, and Viggo takes pictures and throws them all out because none of them capture the essence of it.
And Viggo falls, very quietly, very subtly, for Sean, and he thinks it's half-Boromir, half-Sean, and it really shouldn't matter, because he's not young anymore, and there's no real rush. Then Sean goes off to Berlin to film a science fiction movie, and Viggo sees him after the Fellowship of the Ring premiere and there's something different about him. A bit of desperation, his rough edges sharpened even further, a feverish look in his eyes. He wonders what the hell happened, but it's a slow-burning fire. He keeps track of Sean throughout the years, watching his movies, loving his movies, and falls in love every single time with the way Sean's tongue curls around the words. When Troy comes, he visits the premiere ostensibly for Orlando and spends the whole of it watching Sean. It was then that he categorised the fifty-three different shades of gold in Sean's hair.
Four years ago, they met at Heathrow. A coincidence, really. He's in a whirlwind, promoting Eastern Promises, and he'd met Sean. The feverish look in Sean's eyes seem to have set up and took up residence and started requesting for permanent residency, and Sean's hand was hot in his skin. Viggo becomes Aragorn for a little while, but what they do isn't what Aragorn do, and Aragorn never wanted to fuck Boromir. That's Viggo, through and through, for Sean and Boromir both, and he knows that he's not what Sean is looking for. Sean is looking for someone who immerses even deeper, who becomes completely, who erases himself entirely. Viggo's not like that. He's too centered, too calm, to patient. Sean looks for a thunderstorm and all he finds is a smooth, gentle glade.
Now Viggo starts looking, starts listening. It's not urgent. Just off to the side. It takes a little effort, and he starts reading tabloids online- and when he does, it becomes a little clearer. He doesn't get an invitation to Sean's wedding, but he's heard of Georgina, and when Christian Bale explodes on the set, everything becomes a little sharper, a little clearer. Berlin, a science fiction movie. A beautiful face. Viggo has met Christian before, years and years ago. He has met him, but he knows nothing of him. Viggo is an artist, with a strong eye. He's a photographer. He knows masks when he sees them, and Christian has always been about masks.
It's a little disappointing, a little anti-climatic. Now he knows, so what? He can't sweep Sean up into his arms, and he doesn't want to do that. The kind of poetry he writes doesn't talk much about sweeping romances. Viggo is patient still, and he waits. He works more, and waits, and dates a little, here and there. He laughs with Henry, and he's proud of his son, and he talks to Exene. She's ill, and he helps with that too. He stays in Idaho and takes care of horses and watches Sean and Christian from across the ocean. Bits and pieces of Sean starts to appear in his poetry, in his paintings- but it's fine, really, because no one notices amidst the abstraction.
He works, and he waits. Game of Thrones come and go, and Viggo is startled at how old Sean seems, how he seems weighed down, barely able to breathe. Viggo looks into the mirror and he sees the white in his brow, and suddenly he thinks that- he's running out of time. He's patient, but he's running out of time and it's been twelve years. Twelve years of waiting, and Sean doesn't know a thing about it. Viggo traces the white in the mirror and thinks of a painting, of a blue sky that's streaked with darkness and dotted with hidden starts. But he can't not continue to wait. Sean divorces Georgina. Christian exists. He waits, but he's getting a little antsy about it.
Viggo talks about it, in the interviews. He's afraid. He's running out of time. He's getting old. But he never really says what he's afraid of- and he's glad he hadn't, when the news come out, and Christian starts to tease the press. It's not very nice of him, and Viggo knows truth when he sees it. Since Equilibrium. Since 2001. Sean brightens up, laughs more. He loses the weight he gained for Ned Stark, and loses the years he gained with it. Viggo watches him during the Scream Awards; watches him surrounded by his girls; watches him laugh in a way he hadn't in a long time. And for the first time, he wonders how he can still love this man.
Then the spotlight angles against Sean's hair. A split-second flash, his face is out-of-focus as Viggo slams down on the pause button on the video. Fifty-three shades of gold, and now at least three shades of silver. Viggo's next painting is full of those shades, and he tries over and over to try to recreate the exact differences that he can see, but paint is a terrible mistress and he's more frustrated than not. It's alright. It's not a painting he can sell or display anyway, because it has his heart all over it, and god knows he's obvious enough.
Viggo hates the Oscars, but he has another nomination, and Sean has one. It's a little strange. Viggo's mind makes the strangest leaps. Sean is nominated for his role in David, and Viggo has David Cronenberg to thank for his nomination. Both for Supporting Actors. Sigmund Freud would probably love to have Lucas Shaw on his chair. The press is going crazy over it, what with the Rings connection. Viggo laughs and congratulates him on the phone when they talk, and he drives to LA, more than a little pensive. He hasn't seen Sean in years. Not since the Empire Awards in 2009. It's been three years.
He's running out of time. It's been thirteen years now, and Viggo wonders if he should still wait, or if he should make his move. Christian has laid his claim all over Sean in one movie, tying the two of them together. But Viggo has his mark too, even though he shares it with seven others. Nine, written on Sean's shoulder, written on his arm. It binds them together, this Fellowship.
He thinks he should meet Christian. If only as Christian Bale and Viggo Mortensen, rather than Edward Rosier and Caspar Goodwood. It'll be interesting. Viggo can already see Christian's colours, all blacks and greys and cut-ruby red, glistening and splashed across a painting. The paint has to be wet. It's worthless when it's dry, the meaning all gone, the rubies turned to blood, and that's not the point.
Viggo calls Sean, and it hits his voicemail. That's alright, and he leaves a message. He's staying at a friend's LA flat. (He wonders if Sean is living with Christian, with Christian's wife and daughter.) He wants to meet. For a drink, maybe before the Oscars, because he's missed laughing with Sean; missed being called 'filthy humans' and grouped together by Orlando. The Men of the Fellowship. Viggo-and-Sean. A bond together that they have inked into their skin. Just the two of them, like the kiss that Aragorn had laid upon Boromir's forehead, a benediction from the King to his Steward.
He wonders if Sean thinks of the same thing. If he misses the same things. If he misses New Zealand. It's 2012, Viggo thinks. Maybe it's time to stop waiting.
He wonders if Sean's hair still has the same fifty-three shades.
***
If Viggo had waited for other people's opinions to validate his work to think that what he did meant something, he would've committed suicide a long time ago.
That was a sobering thought. Rather amusing too, actually. There were still vultures outside, circling around the bar - around LA in general - waiting for the tiniest flicker, the smallest giveaway that Viggo Peter Mortensen, nominee (and loser) of the 73rd Academy Award for Best Supporting Award begrudges Sean Mark Bean, winner of the same award, his victory. Well, the vultures could continue to circle. They could keep running around in circles, because Viggo wasn't going to give them what they wanted.
Sean had won. Of course Sean had won. If anyone else had won, Viggo would have stormed out of the Oscars in a towering rage. Even if it was himself. Especially if he was himself. Freud was good, he felt good about the performance, but after what Sean had done...
Perhaps he was a damn masochist, but Viggo couldn't help himself - he watched David, and he came away nearly clawing at his own skin, feeling the dirt that Lucas had accumulated from too much exposure to David Allen stick onto himself. He could feel it along with Sean, the corruption of a good man and the way he had fallen all the way to hell. It was choking and exhilarating and Sean had barely needed to say anything for his performance to carry through with such weight and power. Every single move, every single breath. Viggo had watched Sean carry Boromir's despair and wear it as a tight-fitting cloak with just one turn of the head and one look into his eyes. He had watched with the one and only front-row seat how Sean portrayed Boromir's final acceptance of his King, and had kissed his forehead in absolution while entirely-unplanned tears had coursed down his cheeks.
Viggo couldn't give him a standing ovation during the performance because it was in a goddamn cinema, and it's a shame that no one does that anymore. But there's the Oscars, and the announcement of Sean's name, and Viggo didn't care about anyone's opinions. He stood and applauded for all that he was worth, turning to look at Sean with a blindingly bright grin because goddamn did he deserve it, and Viggo wasn't biased at all, and he knew from one glance that Christian Bale was reaching out, grabbing onto Sean's jacket and pulling him close, hugging him tight, and he was smiling in a way that he hadn't even smiled during his own win - Viggo watched that, too, because he was thorough - and he had let Sean go.
Had turned to look at Viggo through his lashes, across the rows of seats, head tilted to the side.
Because see- Viggo didn't tell Sean after all. Not during that drink one day before the show. Not during that first reunion, full of backslapping and hugs in that too-public hotel lobby, three days before the Oscars. The words had somehow gotten stuck in his throat, or perhaps they were lost, half-formed and tossed away even before he could complete then. The edges of the words were pressing against his tongue, heavy and weighted and he couldn't say anything, and it was ridiculous because he was fifty-four (one number greater than the shades of Sean's hair) and he should be an old hand with this. He should know what to do. It had been thirteen years.
He didn't. Not at all. Viggo had clapped his hands red and raw, his breath coming too fast and too hard, his head spinning from the adrenaline and the exhilaration and David and Michael had given him such odd looks, because he seemed more excited by the fact that he had lost to Sean Bean. But it was Sean, and during the commercial break Viggo had tried to explain it to David haltingly, with broken words and fragmented sentences and waving hands and stilted shoulders, and David had gotten it and grinned, giving him a little headbutt right in front of everyone and it was a little strange, thirteen years out of time. That, and the fact that David Cronenberg had watched the DVD extras for Lord of the Rings.
(Keira and Michael didn't get it, but Vincent did, and texted him about it. It was a marvellous example of how things had gone every single time, with this movie.)
He had texted Sean after the show, the first moment he could. Told him the bar, told him he would be here, and here he was. He wasn't waiting for a reply. There might be messages, there might be not. Viggo didn't want to know, not from a machine. He wanted to hope because he would see Sean's figure at the door. He wanted to feel the sharp disappointment and the tiny flare of unquenchable hope if he didn't. Viggo had nothing else to do tonight. All he would be doing would be waiting for Sean.
And that, he had enough practice. Thirteen years' worth.
if the oscars above are 2012, let's say this is around 2014. the world hasn't ended.
Look at what I have. Look at this, this sign of the man I loved for so long who had claimed me and whom had allowed me to claim him. He wore my ring on his neck and I could see it in every picture all of you vultures took of him, the barest hint of chain. Every time I did so I wanted to reach forward to kiss him in front of all the cameras, all of you damn cannibals, and screw the rules.
But he never did. He kept silent, and never went out with anyone in public. It was a good thing that he was past his prime - he was in his mid-fifties now, with a grown-up son, and he looked the part. The press was far less interested in him than it was in its youthful beauties; its Taylor Lautners and Robert Pattinsons and Zac Efrons. That was fine, becaiuse Viggo still had roles. Hollywood was kinder to its older actors than it had ever been to its actresses. Yet it still grated, because he had never been that good at hiding. He knew how to play people, how to shift the press's attentions away from him - there was a damn good reason why he never had a publicist and why he never needed one - but he had never liked doing it.
(Not like Christian Bale. There was something incredibly disturbing about a man who enjoyed 'trolling' the press as much as he did. Viggo knew he was probably being entirely unfair and irrational about his dislike of the man, but he had never been good at not holding grudges.)
But they were doing this. No more hiding. No more hiding. No more keeping quiet. Viggo knew that they didn't need to come out; that they could simply fade into the background. He had been talking about retirement for years, after all. The problem was- the problem was very, very simply that he wanted to be able to bring Sean with him to premieres. To hold his hand. To kiss him like he was able to kiss his damn costars and director and friends without an uproar or titters of oh, there Mortensen goes again, being overly affectionate. He wanted to be able to hold Sean and to wear his ring and have people know.
Because Viggo was possessive too, in his own way. He could wait. He could turn away. But he wanted to know- wanted everyone to know- that the person that Sean went home to was him. Him and no one else.
And they were doing this. A few more days. They had been speaking to Sean's publicist. It wasn't going to be loud or any magazine covers. He was simply going to be Sean's plus-one to his movie premiere. There was really no better time than this. Sean had an Oscar on his shelves and had been able to successfully evade the damn Oscar curse, Viggo had two nominations under his belt. They weren't signed on to any other projects at the time. They were stable. For now.
And Sean's girls - his ex-wives and daughters both - now knew. Viggo was stalling at the kitchen of his ranch, his fingers busying at tea and coffee and mate and he finally made a gourd of the last and a cup of Sean's Earl Grey before bringing it to him. He leaned in and pressed a kiss into Sean's hair, taking a deep breath of his scent. Viggo still wasn't sick of it. He never would be.
"Los Angeles tomorrow," he murmured. "Ready?"
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His own ring, that ring that had been so close to him, so important to him, was now hung on a chain about Viggo's throat, and in every photograph of him - not many, he noticed - Viggo wore that ring, that glimpse of chain, and Sean thought of where it had been, and he thought of taking it into his mouth and kissing Viggo and tonguing him through the center, and then holding it in his teeth as he backed toward the bed, leading him like it were a particularly shiny leash.
Right now, Sean fumbled the ring at his own neck, and thought quietly of his conversations with his extended family(s). His wives had stared in disbelief, and laughed as though he'd told a particularly funny joke, and then slowly as Sean hadn't moved it had dawned on them that he wasn't joking at all, and slowly they'd come round to it. For the most part his children had been better, and while Sean felt he had waited for Evie to be old enough to be comfortable in herself and in school, no longer just judged for her father, he still worried about how this would effect them. The press would probably hound them, and that he regretted more than anything else, because there was nothing he could do to prevent it. They promised they'd be fine, and he'd kissed each of them, and been relieved that they understood, but the consensus was that if daddy was finally happy, then they were happy too, all of them--wives and all. And all of them were endlessly relieved that they weren't going to find out about any more random hussies he was dating through some news broadcast explaining how he'd been stabbed, and that sounded just fine to him too.
Of course it didn't come without other risks, but as rough as the world was, superstardom tended to help people step above it. The only real worry was his career, but Viggo promised to help him with that, and Sean's agent in London seemed - although not enthused - positive enough about the prospects.
The only thing left, then, was the night itself, and while he kept telling himself that he would be ready, the fact was that he wasn't. There were butterflies leaping in his stomach, and had been for a week, and he wanted nothing more than to just grab Viggo and run, but this was planned. Everyone was ready. Publicists and preprepared statements all in place, and if Sean backed out now he'd be letting all that planning down, and worst of all letting Viggo down.
But it scared him. It scared him because he was afraid that this would be the end, that he wouldn't be able to go home a hero any more, and maybe - in his nightmares - they'd pull down the plaque bearing his name, and spit on it, and grafitti horrible things on his parents' house, and just...
He forced himself to relax, leaning back, looking up at Viggo as he reached for the cup.
"If I say no, can we just elope to Portugal?"
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Viggo had nothing to lose, really. If his acting jobs dry up, then he still had Perceval Press to fall back on. He still had his painting, his photography, his poetry- his art, all of which were anonymous once he had created them, and whose merits didn't depend on his face.
(He knew that wasn't true, and that many people bought his works because they saw him as Aragorn or Walker Jerome or even Nikolai, but he hoped that they actually looked at his work they would forget all that.)
The world would be receptive. It was in the second decade of the new millennium, and if they weren't- Viggo would force it to be, somehow. He would make it happen. He loved Sean too much for the world to tear them apart; for the world to be cruel. There were too many people who loved him for things to go crashing down upon his head. Viggo closed his eyes, and he kissed Sean softly on the lips, his hands running through the strands.
"Of all the countries you could've chosen, why choose one that has a language I don't speak?" he smirked, and kissed Sean gently at the side of his mouth. "We can't elope, but- if you want, we can go to the Monserrate Palace and I'll put my ring on your finger again. If you want, we'll hike up to the Pico mountains and taste all of their sweet wine grapes, and I'll kiss you until your lips are swollen and bitten and you taste of me. It'll be alright, because the juice is red and no one will be able to tell the difference except for the two of us."
Lorna had cornered him after Sean had gone to speak to his ex-wives, wth Abby and Mel. She had seen her father hurt too many times in the past; she was the oldest child, and had watched him fall in love with Abby, then out, and she had watched him struggle and fight through an ugly divorce because he wanted to be a part of Evie's life. She had watched him fall for Georgina and have that marriage and later divorce nearly drive him into shattering, and she never wanted to see that again.
Viggo had wondered how much Sean knew about what his eldest saw, because Lorna was bright-eyed and too sharp and he could see so much of Sean in her that it took his breath away. And he couldn't help but be honest, laying out the pieces of his heart out for her to inspect, until she knew how much he loved Sean; how much he didn't want to hurt him and how far he would go to make him happy. There was no selfishness to his love, and he loved - for fifteen years now, each day stronger than the last, and there was nothing or anyone more important than Sean.
Lorna had looked at him for long moments before she nodded, and she said- it would be that the one person whom her father seemed to settle down for life with was one he couldn't actually marry. It seemed fitting, somehow. Viggo had laughed.
Henry never really needed to be told. Viggo had came back smiling one day, taking off the cloth off the painting that represented the colours of Sean's hair, and Henry had asked if he had finally just told Sean how he felt. And Viggo had, and there was that, and Exene told him that it might have been decades, but he was still ridiculously slow.
But neither of them mattered at the moment. Viggo tipped Sean's head up, catching his eyes and holding his gaze tight.
"We don't have to, if you don't want to."
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Making himself a little more comfortable across the other man's lap, he raised his hands up in turn so that he could touch Viggo's face too, and stroke his hair, and push a few stray strands back behind his ears. He still wasn't conventionally beautiful, and he didn't take up space the way that Sean appreciated Bale could; the way that even in a photograph full of dazzling celebrities, actresses, supermodels and singers, it was Christian who popped out of the scene like nobody else mattered, but Viggo was beautiful to him. Sean had come to appreciate his lines, the laughter about his lips and his eyes, and the way everything blurred together, and when Viggo laughed and smiled he looked like he really meant it, and Sean made him laugh and smile as often as he could as a result.
"Well that's just it," he answered, smiling. "If neither of us can speak it, means we'll end up spending more time alone, only communicating when we absolutely have to. You'll pick it up eventually of course, but not before we've made a proper nest for ourselves herding sheep or something. But your idea sounds just as perfect. Sounds fantastic. Going walking with you..."
It had been a long time since he'd gone trekking up mountainsides. It sounded like a perfect idea. Sounded a hell of a lot better than what they were doing tomorrow, but he knew it was petulant and childish--that running away from it all wasn't going to make it go away. He knew Viggo would come with him if he didn't want to do it, if he wanted to flee and keep going and disappear the way that the world would let them if they were quiet enough.
But he would never be happy then, would he? He owed it to himself to be unafraid of who he was, to be able to live free and confident, unburdened by secrets, able to kiss his lover in public, able to hold his hand, able to look into his eyes and thank him in a crowd of people.
"I want to do this," he said, and looked back into Viggo's eyes for only a moment longer before drawing back. "I want to do this--I'm gonna do it, too. With you. Because I want to."
He tangled his hands in Viggo's hair and kissed him hard, then pulled himself up out of the other man's lap.
"Stay right here. I got a present for you."
Sean wasn't gone for long. It took him less than a minute to fetch the heavy box from his luggage - mostly abandoned - and when he came back, placed it down in Viggo's lap.
"Better than anything they're gonna give you in that goodie-bag, and a day early gonna be much more use."
It was a good bottle of whiskey--well aged. He'd brought it all the way from home just for them, just for tonight, and while it was still early, time for tea, not for booze, he knew he'd just end up forgetting it otherwise.
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There was no way he could have ever taken Sean for granted. Viggo had never taken anything or anyone for granted, frankly, simply because he had too good a memory, and nothing really blurred. Not the sharp joy of his first job, his first published book; not the frustration of never really being able to support himself through acting; not the humiliation of telling his family that he was in a film and being cut out of it. Not the joy of sinking into Sean that first time; not the first kiss; not the sharp fear he felt when he looked at Sean in the Game of Thrones (he learned the name now) and looked at himself in the mirror and realised that they were both not immortal anymore.
It wasn't something he could help. When Sean came back, Viggo let him speak- then he took the box from him and placed it on the table so he wouldn't drop it. Then he reached out and sank his fingers into Sean's hair again, mussing it all up as he kissed him, with lips and tongue and so much love that his heart would burst. He wanted to be able to do something like this in public. To be able to stroke his hands through Sean's hair and kiss him- though not this deep, not this passionate. A brush of his lips, and Viggo would smile at him with love in his eyes and he wouldn't have to worry about the damn cameras that would flash.
He wouldn't have to think that this- this beautiful thing of theirs was something he would have to hide.
Viggo closed his eyes, and brushed another small kiss against Sean's lips before he pulled away. He turned towards the bottle, trailing his fingers over his glass, and his smile was a little crooked but entirely sincere as he turned to Sean again.
"Later," he said, and he couldn't help it. He reached out for Sean again, his fingers linking behind his lover's neck, feeling the warmth of his skin against his own. "With dinner."
He took a breath. "We have to- talk about this. Tomorrow. As much as I wish that the papers won't notice or say anything ridiculously ignorant, I know they would. It might even affair the premiere of the movie." The director knew, as did Sean's castmates and the crew. They couldn't not, really, with the way Viggo dropped in for a 'visit' with him on the set and set up camp in Sean's trailer for the next two weeks.