we are the same but our lives have moved along, and the third one between-

[honestlyyours]

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.

Comments

[somethingleft]

It was something special the awards this time. Being there with Christian was like being a part of a different world, because frankly Sean had gone out of his way to avoid this kind of razzle dazzle. It wasn't his style, not really. He'd rather be out with his mates than spending hours listening to booming music and shouting, cheers, clapping his hands sore, and worst of all being faced by the press. Sean hated it. He hated being questioned by the press, because he always felt that put on the spot he just couldn't sparkle like they expected him to--it was disappointment in himself, really. Just like he was disappointed in himself when he was faced with people he'd met a few times and couldn't remember them for the life of it. Showbiz was just so many people. So many people, and when he was up, he was expected to remember them.

Right now he was up. Everyone wanted a piece of him since David. Lucas had been a fantastic role--if only it had come a decade sooner, right? And people would say 'Sean! I worked with you on Equilibrium, remember?' And he'd just blink, and it'd turn out that their careers had been fantastic for the last ten years, that they were famous for a half dozen things he had actually heard of, or something similar. It was all just impossible to keep track of.

It had been a great role though. He could still feel Christian's hands on him, for heaven's sake. Christian who had sat beside him with his arm across his shoulder as the lights went up, and Sean had flicked out his phone to tap through the text he'd just got. He'd almost felt the glare that Christian had sent across the room over his shoulder. At Viggo.

He'd excused himself quietly, not sure what he was going to do, made his way to the bar rather than the after show party, and quietly arranged to be let in the back way, knowing that Viggo would be watching the door. He wanted a few moments to compose himself, try and sort himself out, and for an autograph the bar staff were willing to help him out. In the end he set himself behind the bar with them, polishing glasses as though he belonged there and watching Viggo over the bar.

He looked bloody miserable. Did he really drive men so damn crazy? Viggo looked like a grey shade of what he'd been back on the set of Lord of the Rings. The years didn't seem to have treated him fairly--and sure, Sean had heard a lot of what he'd been through in that time. He'd been hurt, and his family life had suffered. But he was working hard - harder than almost anyone - and Sean knew what that was like, and couldn't begrudge him that.

Sean was waiting, leaning on the bar, watching Viggo quietly, watching his drink lower and hanging back for when he came back for more. He'd be ready.

if the oscars above are 2012, let's say this is around 2014. the world hasn't ended.

[honestlyyours]

He had been wearing Sean's ring on a chain around his neck for over a year now, and Viggo was aware every single day of its weight. A literal weight in gold, the chain coated in white gold and warmed against his skin. He wore it to countless events and interviews; events that he had to go to because that 'retirement' from acting never did happen, and he kept getting scripts dumped at his agent's; scripts with stories that drew him strongly and which he could not resist. Every single time he wanted to drag out the chain and say- look, look at this.

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?"

[somethingleft]

So this was it. Time to step out of the car and actually face the music. The queue was pulling along steadily, and one at a time the door was being pulled open by a footman, and a star - or a less shiny star - would step out onto the red carpet to a flurry of bright flashes and smile and pose and chat with people on their way up the path. Sean wanted to pull out, but there was nowhere to go now, and he squeezed his hands on his knees as though that might help. His palms were sweaty, and he felt a little light headed, and he'd never felt this way in front of an audience before. Never. But it had rarely ever been this important.

He looked back at Viggo, bit his lip and then detached his right hand so that he could reach up and brush the other man's hair down from where it had ended up tucked behind one ear. Viggo's hair had grown out again, slightly curled from too much getting caught in the Idaho rain, and Sean let his fingers draw all the way through it. With his hair dyed straw-blonde, slightly grown out, it made him look like a slightly unkempt cowboy--which was why Sean had been enjoying the style so thouroughly. He actually looked beautiful like this, he thought wistfully, and thought of the Sean who hadn't thought so, and laughed at him because he loved this man, and there wasn't a moment that he wasn't beautiful, especially right now.

When he leant up to kiss him it was slow, and steady. It was long days in the mountains, and kisses that went on until the rain started suddenly, ozone suddenly overwhelming and making their heads spin. It was long post-orgasmic showers, where they stretched against each other and cold tiles and each other again, and let the water pound on them until they were clean enough to fall back into bed soaking wet and sleep until they were shivering and damp but happy, a knot of arms and legs and soggy sheets. It was a kiss that reassured him, and Sean leant back and looked Viggo in the eyes and said something that up until now he hadn't voiced out loud, ever cautious as he had been never to say more than he meant and give the other man the wrong impression. There was no doubt now.

"I love you, Viggo."

The car was moving forward again. Soon it would be their turn to face the cameras, but Sean's heart was steadying. He had nothing to prove--he had just said the most terrifying thing that he would all night, and been through far more beside in his love life than the press could ever throw at him. No, he wasn't afraid.

"You ready?"

[somethingleft]

Their escape after everything had been such a relief for Sean - such a relief - because there just wasn't anything that he liked better than getting Viggo alone and just--well, enjoying him.

It was late summer in Idaho; the sun clung to everything from morning through to night like it didn't want to let go for any reason, and Viggo taught Sean to look around with bare feet and let the sand and mud and grass squelch between his toes. He'd begun to actually like it--mostly because after a long day they'd sit with each other's feet in their laps and rub between each other's toes, and it was all just so utterly ridiculous that Sean would probably never tell anyone about it. It was soppy, and romantic, but he wouldn't exchange it for the whole world.

He was thinking about marriage. Viggo had always said it wasn't necessary--putting a label on it. But Sean was addicted, the press insisted, and to a certain extent that was true. He wanted to be able to say that Viggo was his husband, because 'boyfriend' seemed to dispensable, and he didn't want to lose him. As much as it was the kiss of death, it seemed, to his relationships, he was certain this time. He'd even bought the ring, with their names inscribed inside, back in London.

But he hadn't decided yet, and he didn't know how he was going to do it, even if he did.

It was a long, slow day - early rising, in Viggo's arms, and then the morning out shopping, getting some time to himself while Viggo worked, and coming back round to the studio to meet him so that they could maybe go out for dinner together, depending on how much more there was to do, or if inspiration had caught him. Sean bought a new pair of sunglasses because his were broken; and they weren't the huge black monstrosities he used to block out his face but a pair that were closer to normal glasses, with thin wire frames in dark green, and a subtle forest shade to the oblong lenses that darkened depending on the intensity of the light.

Wearing a button down white shirt--the top buttons undone, and brown suede slacks over his current pair of cowboy boots - genuine leather - Sean breezed back into Viggo's studio without knocking, carrying take-out coffee under his arm, and with a smile on his face that more than reflected the Idaho sunshine, if not outright outdoing it.

"Special delivery for--" A pause, as he pretended to read his hand. "--Mr. Viggo Mortensen? What kinda stupid ass name is that?"