tennessee - in the mountains
by cimorene
It's too late now.
It seems that he thinks a lot. Viggo spends a lot of time doing whatever he wants to do, and a lot of times he wants to do things like drink tea, write poetry, go camping, and sit outside waiting for something to present itself to him to be painted.
After the premieres of The Return of the King, they continued to meet for several years, all of them, here and there. He still keeps in contact with Elijah and Sean, because it's too easy not too, but he doesn't do it as often anymore.
At the end of filming, it seemed inconceivable that they would drift apart, no matter what reason and experience and Sean Bean told them. Drifting happens, and coincidence and apathy prevent people from meeting, but all it takes is effort. Their friendships would last forever. They would all miss each other too much to let that happen. They would not lose each other.
After the party at the last premiere, it still hadn't occurred to Viggo that a day would come when he would feel he couldn't call any of them. Least of all Orli.
Somehow he has missed him all this time without speaking to him, and now he has let it become so long that he realizes--as soon as he finally determines he needs to see or hear him, that he should, that he will--that he can't.
Or rather, that he he shouldn't.
Nothing has changed, except that his need has built up and taken him to the breaking point. He knows that that is what has been happening--for years, he's been waiting for that to happen. Nothing is different. He and Orli are the same people, and he feels the same, even if he didn't know quite what he felt at the time, and evidently, though he's a little older, he's no wiser. They are still as far apart as ever. All the same shouldn't's that made them shy away from this more then still apply.
Viggo stands next to his kitchen table, which is something of a mess right now because two days ago, he was trying to learn batik. Finally he pushes aside a rumpled paper bag of beeswax and a sheaf of computer printouts and picks up his cordless phone anyway.
He calls Elijah.
"Are you insane?" Says Elijah affectionately.
"Maybe," Viggo says softly, his standard response to questions like that, except when he's in a particularly scary mood and says "yes."
Elijah lets a beat pass before he says in a tone of exasperation, "But it's the middle of the winter, you friggin' idiot."
Viggo wonders if he has spent Christmas with his parents: on the set, he would have said fucking, likely as not. "That would be a good reason," says Viggo, "not to hike the Appalachian trial, or not to climb down the inside of the Grand Canyon, or not to walk from Colorado to West Virginia carrying all your belongings in a knapsack."
"A knapsack?" Interrupts Elijah.
"A knapsack," says Viggo, who doesn't rephrase things just because other people have problems with them. "However, I have suggested none of these things. I promise that there is central heating in the cabin."
"Mm," says Elijah doubtfully, "I think New Year's is something of a family time for Sean, but I'll give him a call if you want to check out the cabin."
"Thank you," Viggo replies graciously.
"Not that I'm promising to go if he can go then."
He is lying, of course. Elijah is a pushover, and ridiculously easy to read. Viggo used to just think this was funny, or occasionally useful. Now he hasn't seen Elijah for more than a year and a half and the mere sound of his voice is making memories rush back--memories of New Zealand. Memories of everyone. Like Orli.
But he knew that would happen. "I understand," he tells Elijah. They are going to the cabin for New Year's, if there's any way in hell Elijah can cajole and bully Sean into it. Viggo has no doubts. Elijah is a pushover for anyone. Sean is even more good-natured and considerate than Elijah, but has a certain point beyond which he would never budge--except for Elijah.
Viggo envies them, each of them, their straightforwardness. He envies the simplicity and openness of their relationship. It's special and sweet. It would work. Wouldn't it be easier, if they could be like that?
They never could have before, and they never can.
He has to stop thinking of himself and Orli as "we."
They never shared either one of their places regularly, although Viggo slept with Orli and Orli with Viggo often enough. They were never regular or predictable at all. It worked.
Sometimes big groups of people went out and drank, of course. They usually split apart into smaller groups when people started to leave. Viggo left as often as not; sometimes he stayed around with Sean Bean, or Ian, or both, or with the hobbits. The hobbits, of course, generally included Orli.
The first time, he had been watching Orli, and when they all left the pub, he eyed the brick wall and then the alley and thought about it. He could pull Orli back into the shadows there and see if he would allow himself to be kissed utterly senseless and if his mouth tasted as intriguing as it looked. Orli was the type to go if you just said, "Orli, come here for a second," probably whether or not he suspected what you wanted. He seemed the type to allow himself to be kissed senseless at least once even if he didn't swing that way.
Then there was the meandering walk around as they looked for cars. Viggo was the only one of them sober enough to drive, but he didn't decide to point this out until they'd been wandering in search of Dominic's car for nearly ten minutes. Orli's hair was short and bristly, very recently-shaven then and just starting to grow in. Viggo wanted to see its texture in the palms of his hands and on his belly and his thighs.
"Orli, wait," he could say, and turn him in the street and kiss him. The hobbits were probably drunk enough that they wouldn't remember.
Viggo didn't risk it. He drove them back very carefully, and Orli seemed to move rather slowly when he was drunk, and to find his reflection in the glass doors of the motel disproportionately fascinating. They were the last two into the lobby, and in the stairwell, Viggo said softly, "Orli."
He turned swiftly and not unevenly, and stood without moving, watching, when Viggo closed the gap between them. However, it wasn't until the mouth was parting sweetly under his lips that Viggo realized Orli wasn't nearly as drunk as he'd supposed.
Sometimes they fucked after trips to pubs, and sometimes they just messed around. Sometimes they didn't. Every now and then they found one another in the morning or the afternoon, when they were free, and inexplicably fell to kissing. Very rarely, they stayed in the hotel instead of going out with everyone.
The first time, Viggo had no thought of the second time; and the second time, he had no thought of the third time. His thoughts of Orli were the kinds of thoughts that made him sit down right away to write poetry or draw, muse-ish thoughts that seized hold of him and didn't relax their grip on him until he'd painted Orli's stomach with his tongue or screamed his energy in orgasm to the ceiling or the sky with Orli's mouth or his body around him. He could sate them, though, when he sated his body and filled his eyes with Orli's ridiculously graceful perfection, and they'd leave, only to return unpredictably.
The fourth time, Orli came looking for him and found him fishing, in costume. He managed to get most of Viggo's costume off with his teeth, and fucked him hard on a bed of grass, with the fishing pole lying forgotten nearby.
Orli read all of Viggo's poetry, but none of it until after the first time. It didn't seem to matter; they became real friends, close friends, but the friendship and the other rarely mixed.
It's not cold in Viggo's house in the winter, but he makes tea anyway. It feels like the kind of thing you do in the winter, and he did it even before New Zealand and his constant exposure to Brits. Even Brits like Orli and Dom and Billy--they all drank tea. He wasn't sure if there were any who didn't in the whole country.
He has finished cleaning the batik out of the kitchen, but he has a lot of it in a cardboard box just inside the door to his art room (otherwise known as the spare bedroom). He didn't ever manage to boil the rest of the wax out of the silk. He would probably give it up as helpless but he can't bear to ruin a length of silk. Viggo used more wax than he would have if he'd realized it would be this hard to get it out, but it's too late now, and if he ever manages, it will be very pretty.
There's something about visual art that poetry and writing can't capture, and there's something about crafting something with your hands, really making it, that goes beyond sketching and painting and photography.
Viggo leans against the kitchen counter, sipping a cup of tea, and flips through the last few pages of his journal. They're filled with short entries of a few sentences each, disturbingly disjointed. He never felt particularly upset at any one time, writing them, but they make him uneasy now, and he puts the journal away before he even finishes the cup of tea.
Three cups of tea are gone before Viggo has a complete and coherent thought. He can't quite remember what he was thinking about before that, other than the words "England" and "New Zealand" and some vague images, and feelings of warmth. The phone rings.
It's Sean, saying very cheerfully that his wife doesn't have a problem with them camping (well--cabining?) over New Year's. "Fantastic," Viggo replies, enthusiastically, and "Your wife is unbelievable," because it seems appropriate.
"Isn't she?" Sean beams. Viggo can tell he's beaming.
"So do I need to call Lige?" Viggo asks, even though he's pretty sure of the answer.
Sean sounds surprised, "No, I'll tell him. Just let us know when you know the details."
"I can give them to you right now, and you can tell Lige when you call." Viggo picks up a pen and starts to doodle on the corner of the piece of paper he wrote them on, even though he basically remembers without looking at it.
"Oh--that was fast," says Sean doubtfully.
Viggo touches the side of the teapot, and it is cooling, so he puts the kettle under the tap and fills it again. "Well, I was going to cancel if you couldn't," he says, after a break that was probably too long, to be polite.
But he and Sean understand each other: Sean laughs. "I understand," he says, "just let me get a pen. --What are you doing?" Viggo has bumped a glass with his elbow, trying not to spill the kettle, and it tipped mostly-empty into the sink and broke.
He says ruefully, "Making a mess. Don't worry about it; just get your pen."
"Okay. Shoot."
Viggo starts to give him directions, but Sean stops him and asks for a date. "When's good for you?" Viggo asks.
People knew about them, but they didn't talk about it. Orli and Viggo didn't really talk about it with each other. What the others knew was very small, in fact: some morning sightings of them leaving each other's rooms (three they knew of), some witnessed kisses, some rumpled clothes. For the rest, they probably guessed a lot, but there was no telling how accurate their guesses were.
If Viggo tried to define it, he was forced to guessing himself, because the truth was that it was very lopsided and changeable and ambiguous. He didn't try, for the most part, though. He looked for Orli sometimes, and sometimes they fucked twice and woke in the middle of the night and fucked again, long and slow, and woke up wrapped around each other, early, and tried again, but found out they were too tired and laughed and just made out instead. Sometimes he walked beside Orli in the forest talking, and sometimes they walked together on the set or between scenes not talking. Sometimes they went almost a week without seeing each other. Viggo went days without giving it a thought.
Then sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night alone, agonizingly hard, thirsting for Orli so much he murmured his name out loud.
Tennessee sounds deceptively Southern, but there are a lot of mountains in it. Viggo has only ever been to his aunt and uncle's cabin in the summer and the spring, and the last time he was there was almost ten years ago. The heater works, he keeps reminding himself, as he drives a rented Jeep into what he can only describe as "the mountains," although he has always remembered this cabin being described as at "the bottom" of one particular mountain.
"A small one," Aunt Sarah said on the phone, and laughed.
There is snow all around the road. The road has been salted, but not as carefully as some non-mountain roads are. Perhaps it's not even possible to salt this road that carefully. Viggo can see the normal variety of snow plow wouldn't fit on it. Snow is crushed between pieces of gravel when the pavement runs out, like some bizarre kind of close-packed icecream, dirty white, chunks of brown (chocolate?).
He doesn't read Rolling Stone or Vanity Fair very often now, which is to say, even less often than he did before, which is to say, practically never. Those pages of famous people at parties were never very exciting, but now they bother him, somewhat.
He recently saw a picture of Orli with a reed-thin redhead plastered to his arm, grinning so her face split in half with her freckles sprinkled across the apples of charming cheeks. She was beautiful, and stunning in a dress that would have been conservative with four or so more inches of length. Orli was smiling too, a real, somewhat tentative smile, with that peculiar almost-shy look in his eyes that wars so fascinatingly with his showman's front and his rakish devil-may-care grin.
Viggo has encountered other snapshots of Orli like that, and others with girls, but not very recently, and not since he realized it was too late. It was disturbing so soon after, too soon. He still thinks about that, fruitlessly but frequently.
His breath makes a white cloud in front of his face that dissipates when he walks through it, carrying two duffels, one on each shoulder. The lock scrapes a little, but the door opens smoothly. It's the same temperature in the little living room as on the rustic porch, and he still breathes in visible little puffs, but when he pulls back the curtains and the clear white winter sun pours in, he already feels warmer.
Viggo turns on the heat, and by the time Elijah arrives he has brought in a stack of wood, taken off his gloves, and started a fire. Between them, they have supper almost finished when Sean gets there, shaking fresh snow out of his hair.
His apology gets cut off when Elijah barrels into him and his face vanishes into the shoulder of his jacket. They stand there, laughing and crying and patting each others' backs. Viggo reconsiders his assumption that they've seen each other a lot more frequently than he has seen either of them, and only hugs Sean when Elijah has let him go and stepped more than his initial four inches away.
This was good, he thinks over supper; he needed to see them, and the way they keep smiling has kept him smiling since before Sean stepped through the door. Elijah was very proud of the fact that he knew how to make spaghetti sauce, so Viggo had had very little to do except make noodles, which Elijah claimed just made up for the wood Viggo had carried. It's natural that they would start talking about the cast and the movie, of course. He knew it would happen, and he would like to know more about them--he hasn't seen Dom and Billy for some time, but Elijah and Sean saw them a year and a half ago, apparently. Sean is the only one who has spoken to Sean Bean for a while. Elijah has kept up with Ian.
"Have you heard from Orli, recently?" Elijah asks him, and when he says no, Sean does a poor job of concealing his surprise.
"Not since the last time I saw the two of you."
"On the phone?" Sean tries, clearly believing that Viggo has misunderstood.
"No," Viggo says, pleasantly casual, inwardly feeling a peculiar clenching hardness.
"Is he still seeing that girl?" Asks Sean.
"The redhead?" Viggo makes himself ask.
"Oh no, that was a while ago," says Elijah, "but no, he's not seeing--um--Michelle?--anymore either. You know, 'seeing' is a rather strong word to use with Orli."
"Yes, he never really does," Sean agrees, "like you," and Elijah blushes. The conversation is successfully diverted. Of course that wasn't Sean's intent.
But when Viggo says, "It's very peaceful here. I was hoping I'll be able to really think here, and have a chance to center myself," Sean gives him a look that says maybe it was.
"Was that a hint?" Elijah jokes, "Because I'm still planning to get drunk tonight, and you're not escaping."
"Well, it was worth a try," Viggo smiles, and they all laugh.
When he's not drunk, Elijah stretches out on the couch with his feet in Sean's lap, but when he is drunk, he puts his head in Sean's lap. Viggo pushes the armchair closer and puts his feet on the couch too, and he and Elijah play a sort of half-assed kicking game. Sean laughs at this for a while, but then just watches bemusedly. Elijah is far more drunk than that, and no longer as playful, when he returns to the subject of Orli.
He still tries to be tactful, which must be a hard impulse to have in his state, Viggo has to give him that. Sean seems slightly troubled by the question--"So how long has it been since you and Orli, y'know, had contact--spoke or saw each other, or whatever?"--but he also seems slightly interested.
Viggo is not sober himself, which is probably why he says "Too long" instead of "a few years." At least he doesn't say "three years and a month and a half."
"Why?" Elijah asks, abandoning tact.
Viggo frowns. "It didn't seem--I don't know. We're still friends."
Sean says carefully, "You kind of surprised me. I would have expected..." with less beer, he probably could have managed to do this without the doubtful face.
"So you didn't have a fight," says Elijah, and
Viggo says, "There's no problem. We've just lost touch."
"If that's not a problem, then there isn't one," mutters Sean, whose tact may be on the way out.
Viggo frowns again, or maybe he has been frowning the whole time. There's really nothing to say. It is a problem, but he still thinks it is for the best.
"He's really the same," Elijah tells them, thinking he's changing the subject.
"Mm-hm." Viggo thought so.
Sean has a picture of Orli. He is alone in this one, at the premiere of something else, with his hands sort of in his pockets and sort of not. He looks directly into the camera, frankly, not smiling, but not making one of those "posed" sexily solemn faces either. His hair has grown out a little longer than it was at the RotK premiere, and is just spiky enough to suggest styling products. He looks ill at ease. His latest choice of wild shirt emphasizes his lean build and makes him look actually small, which is rare for Orli, though he isn't large.
"He looks sad," Elijah says critically, and he is right.
Sean replies, glancing at Elijah with a look of surprise, "I thought that too."
Viggo nods a little and gives the picture back. "Keep it," Sean offers, and Viggo hesitates, but he can't really refuse. He sets it face-down on the end table.
He sleeps heavily, and when he gets up in the morning it is gone. Later, he discovers this is because Elijah has put it in the outer pocket of one of his bags.
"If it's been too long," Elijah says at lunch without looking at him, when Sean is outside getting more wood, "the longer you wait, the worse it will get."
And Sean says that he's sorry to say anything, and after this one thing he'll shut up, but "It's really too bad that you've lost touch with Orli, of all people. It's easy to lose something like that, and hard to get it."
At the second to last premiere for The Two Towers--which was either London or New York--Viggo was late to the party before the movie. He walked in briskly, straightening his cuffs. He got about fifteen paces into the room before a bomb shaped like Orli, and smelling fantastic, hit him.
It was a hug, but so much more, with Orli wrapped so satisfyingly around him and piece after piece of Viggo's body awakening to memory, tingling and melting with happiness. Rubbing Orli's back or patting it would have been appropriate, but for a long time they were both absolutely motionless. Viggo's eyes were closed. The first movement he was aware of was Orli's head moving, sort of nuzzling a little, at his neck, and a soft laugh, which he could feel as Orli's breath above his open collar, making him shiver.
Then Orli lifted his face and bestowed the ghost of a kiss on Viggo's lips. They stepped back reluctantly, and Orli went away, but Viggo found him again after the movie, and they stayed together for about half of what was left of the party, including a memorable session of making out among the folds of Orli's overcoat in the coat room, the slippery satin lining under Viggo's hands when they touched the wall next to him and the slippery wet of Orli's mouth on his neck and traveling down his chest as he undid more than half the buttons of his shirt.
Viggo didn't pay very much attention to the last premiere for The Two Towers, and he didn't see Orli more than usual, but when it was over he caught Orli's wrist and whispered his room number in his ear.
Orli showed up with his shirt already half-unbuttoned less than ten minutes after Viggo got back, already shaking with desire while Viggo impatiently finished getting the shirt off of him. He was in a frightening hurry to undress Viggo, but when they fell naked together onto the bed he rolled on top of Viggo with a little sigh and relaxed. Finally he leaned forward until his mouth was just over Viggo's and said, "yeah" just before their lips flowed together. It was the first time their mouths had met since the New York (or London) coat room, and they took their time, taking little sips of kisses for a long while with tiny pauses between each one. Then Orli's tongue slipped in to re-learn the contours of Viggo's mouth, and the kiss spiraled deep and wild and wet out of control.
Insatiable. Viggo couldn't feel enough of Orli, couldn't believe the taste of his skin had gotten sweeter, and the dark flash of his eyes had gotten more languidly tempting, the smooth curve of his ribs more beautiful. He followed the sweep of Orli's eyebrows down the sharp high curves of his cheekbones with his lips, his eyes closed. Orli gently nipped his earlobe, and soothed it with a kiss that became the first in a line trailing down his neck and across his chest to his nipple. Viggo arched up into that hot, teasing mouth, choking on words that couldn't decide what they would say, and groaned harshly.
Orli smiled against his skin, and he shuddered and seized Orli's head, holding it still or clutching at it as he leaned over Orli, kissing and kissing and pushing him over onto his back. He straddled Orli's thighs and they stayed like that with him leaning over Orli for long moments while his thumbs traced arcs behind the delicate ears and he plumbed the depths of the clever mouth. Panting at the ceiling, the hot velvet of Orli's cock thrumming in his mouth, jerking at the touch of his tongue. Long fingers tangled in his hair. The long, slim thighs going rigidly tense, the whole beautiful pale body yearning towards him as Orli thrust up into his mouth, crying his name, and spent himself so deep in Viggo's throat he could barely taste it.
Then, with a sigh and a smile, he went liquidly pliant and his legs folded smoothly over Viggo's shoulders, his hands on Viggo's hips urging him close. He positioned himself carefully and tested the relaxation of the small opening with two fingers. Black eyes smoldered up at him as the inner muscles admitted him easily, then gave a lazy, suggestive clench around his fingers. His breath caught; his heart pounded. Viggo sank in slowly, biting his lip, and Orli rolled his hips up encouragingly, his whole body stretching, catlike.
"God," Viggo said roughly as he pushed the last little bit in and rested there, surrounded in Orli's hungry body. Then they were kissing and moving together, open-mouthed and messily, gasping every now and then, long deep thrusts setting them on fire, short, shallow ones giving them space to kiss each other's ears and necks. In pauses they drew out sweating with anticipation, they laughed breathily.
He pulled back long and slowly, and paused, nearly all the way out, the muscles in his arms straining while Orli murmured, "Come on, damn you." Then he plunged back, faster, in one swift drive, going deep and angling perfectly so Orli was left panting, with his head thrown back, the muscles in his flat stomach jumping under Viggo's caressing hand. He did it again, and Orli groaned. Again, a little faster, and Orli sobbed incoherently, "God" or "Viggo" or some combination of the two.
In the end, after a feverish blur of movement, Viggo was lying on his back with his feet braced, while Orli rose and fell above him, eyes closed with pleasure, his face beautifully flushed. Orli was a wicked tease, lowering himself slightly and pulling back again, slowly rotating his hips, taking Viggo all the way in and resisting any movement but the tightening and loosening of his inner muscles. Finally he gave in to his need and began pumping up and down in a steady, then quickening rhythm. Viggo's fingers dug into his hips, and he was hoarse from shouting encouragement already when Orli stiffened and came, spilling over his thighs and Viggo's belly. That was the end, after a few more emphatic thrusts, and climax swept him up, robbing him of sight and making him dizzy with release and pulsating pleasure.
Orli let himself collapse and he pulled him close, wrapping him tightly in his arms, and held him like that until they both fell asleep.
He woke Orli the next morning with a passionate kiss and wrapped his legs around the slender hips. They were in bed when Viggo's plane left, Orli curled up close behind him with one hand wrapped around his straining erection, buried perfectly still deep inside him, alternating kisses and little bites on the curve of Viggo's neck and shoulder. Viggo lifted one leg further, trying to give better access, and Orli flexed his hips once, smoothly, in response.
Much later, when Viggo whispered "please," Orli had progressed to a gentle even rolling of his hips, the shallowest possible thrusts, and very little of the friction Viggo craved. With that, though, he laughed and kissed the back of Viggo's neck. The rocking sped up, and he searched for a better angle.
And found it. A few strokes against that spot and Viggo was blind with desire, begging for the deep, forceful thrusts Orli quickly obliged him with. One, two--he couldn't breathe any more, then, only feel, and he might have been hoarsely shouting even before he came with Orli still inside.
"What time is it?" Orli whispered some time later, looking at Viggo through slitted eyes though he was in perfect view of the bedside clock.
"Almost eleven."
"My flight's supposed to leave at one fifteen."
"Screw it," Viggo said. Orli laughed, delighted, and they had sex again in the shower, with Orli's back up against the wall and water running hot in between them. It didn't take as long as it might have, though, and Orli left in plenty of time to catch his flight, slipping on a pair of sunglasses before he leaned in again for a brief kiss.
They were always very casual. They didn't do anything at the premieres for The Return of the King.
On New Year's Eve they go walking in the snow. They meant to get up early, but when Viggo woke up, Sean was serenely sipping coffee at the table, and Elijah was still asleep. They didn't wake him up: it wasn't that important. The sun is well up when they finally leave. Elijah has the grace to be mildly embarrassed that he's slept so long, but they don't let him talk about it, just tell him to fill another thermos with the coffee that has just finished brewing.
They lose the path when they're among the trees. You can't really see it, because the snow has drifted pristine and thick over everything. The telling moment is when Elijah walks to the side to break an enormous icicle off of a tree branch. "It's huge," he says enthusiastically, flexing gloved fingers around it and licking melting water off of it.
Sean makes a face. "The water's probably not clean."
"You've had kids for too long," Viggo tells him, breaking off a much smaller icicle from near the end of the same branch and biting off the end of it. It shatters between his teeth and his mouth fills with cold shards before they start to melt, his tongue tingling with the cold.
Then when they look back the way they came, they're not sure what direction the path was supposed to go. Their footprints are a muddy carnage on the blanket of snow, though, so they can always find their way back.
"Oh, well," Viggo shrugs. "Shall we go on?" And they do. They drink coffee at twelve thirty seven, and Elijah wants to try to mix coffee and clean snow to make some kind of strange dessert.
"That won't work," says Sean, but he's smiling.
"If you can eat it before the snow melts--" Elijah protests, already wading out into the snow, looking for the perfect handful.
Viggo has done the same thing with maple syrup before: of course, the syrup wasn't hot, and the coffee is. It doesn't work, but Elijah bravely drinks the resultant mixture anyway. "Well," he says philosophically, "the water didn't taste too dirty."
Sean teases, "I don't think they get too much acid rain in Tennessee."
Now Elijah makes a face. "Thanks."
They turn around soon and go back to the cabin ravenous, but too tired to cook anything other than a lot of canned soup. "I brought some bread," Viggo remarks, sitting on the hearth rug and drinking the soup from the bowl, his spoon untouched.
"What about butter?"
He licks his lips. "Mm-hm."
"Some toast would be good," Elijah says wistfully. After Sean polishes off the last of his first bowl, he toasts some of the bread, and they spread butter on it that's so cold it tears the bread.
"It's a good thing we're eating lunch so late," Sean says, "that way we can eat dinner late too, and we won't need an extra meal before we go to sleep."
"Who's going to sleep?" Elijah grins. "It's New Year's."
Viggo and Sean make supper, because Elijah says he wants to save all his energy for mixing drinks. He watches TV for several hours, after a brief complaint that having a television makes the cabin too un-rustic, and that it should at least be decently hidden in a wooden cabinet. Viggo turns it off after a while, though.
Elijah looks at him curiously. "We can watch the ball drop," he says, "but that's where I draw the line. We're supposed to be in the wilderness, Elijah."
Sean has finished setting the table already, because he just dropped a handful of silverware in the center of it and set out three plates and cups. "A wilderness with some really kick-ass coq au vin."
"As long as you didn't use the champagne to make it," Elijah says, closing his eyes, arching his back and stretching.
"Oh," Viggo exclaims, "That was what the champagne was for?"
"Haha," Elijah mutters, after slitting open an eye to see from his face that he really was joking.
Viggo has time to sit by himself on the porch before dinner, thinking, but it's hard to hold on to one train of thought. He isn't even really sure what he needs to be thinking about.
At the end of the last premiere for The Return of the King, Viggo thought about catching Orli and kissing him. He considered breaking the long precedent of their whole relationship by starting a conversation about it, even by saying "I'll call you" or arranging another meeting in advance. In the end, he couldn't; they'd been doing it the other way for a long time, and it was too ingrained.
It's hard to hold to one train of thought, though, and finally Viggo gives in and stops trying to think, letting his thoughts bubble slowly and flow out until his mind is almost still. He doesn't have time for any real meditation, though, before Elijah comes looking for him.
Elijah does make some interesting mixed drinks, and some good ones, including some Viggo suspects he has invented. He sets those disposable plastic flutes on the hearth, along with the bottle, where they immediately fall over and roll onto the floor.
"They'd probably melt anyway," Viggo says, amused, and Elijah stands them up but leaves them on the floor. They turn the TV on again at eleven fifty. At midnight, Elijah kisses him on the mouth, a brief, pretty cool kiss. Viggo thinks about raising his eyebrows, but he doesn't until Elijah turns and kisses Sean's cheek, and neither of them can see.
Cheek for Sean?
Viggo has always, out of a kind of respect for them, refrained from speculating.
He pours them all champagne, and gives Sean a kiss too before they toast. The plastic cups don't make that musical clink of goblets so much as a muffled little click, but they ignore this and drain them quickly. Elijah refills all three before they've had time to catch their breath, and they laugh and drink again, more slowly.
They don't go back to the mixed drinks until all the champagne is gone. True to his word, Elijah doesn't go to sleep all night, and he doesn't kiss Sean on the mouth until Sean has fallen asleep, on the couch, and Viggo is standing out of sight at the end of the hallway. Even then it is nearly as brief as Viggo's kiss, but more hesitant, and Viggo thinks he isn't imagining the look on Elijah's face.
His throat closes, and he can't clear it to announce his presence until Elijah is sitting next to Sean's knees on the edge of the couch, staring into the fire again. They don't say anything about that, but they talk and don't talk for a long time and watch the sun rise over the snow from the porch.
"Thank you for coming," Viggo says softly, and Elijah squeezes his hand.
Elijah was the first one who saw anything. They'd been in the woods and lost track of time. Suddenly it was dark all around, the forest thick with shadows so you could hardly move without bumping anything in the pitch black. Viggo knew the way out, and Orli clung to him, making it harder to walk so they stumbled into more tree branches, but they didn't really care, and they emerged into the much lighter twilit darkness out of the shadows of the trees laughing.
Viggo always takes the stairs because it's faster, and because you can always use the exercise. With Orli, it usually was slower, because they stopped sometimes even more frequently than every landing, or tried to walk upstairs with one of them backwards, eyes closed, kissing. Orli was the backwards one that time, and he was still backwards when Viggo kicked open the door to the hall on his floor and they walked down towards his room still kissing. Then he stopped in front of the door of his room, seizing Orli's hands to hold him still, and proceeded to kiss him very thoroughly, touching only at their mouths and hands. Orli stood passive for a moment, but soon enough his hands curled around to grip Viggo's tightly, and he made a soft humming noise in the back of his throat that made Viggo shiver.
Then he saw him. Elijah was standing outside the door of Sean (A--his Sean)'s room, and he had evidently been waiting. Now he was just staring. Viggo met his eyes at an angle, and he blinked and looked down. Viggo untangled their hands smoothly and raised his to cup the sides of Orli's face and break the kiss. Then he unlocked his room and pulled Orli in after him, and closed the door.
He told Orli about it later, the next day, when they were drinking coffee in costume on the set. Orli had stolen his newspaper, but at that he set it down and took a thoughtful sip. "Hm," he said, frowning and looking into the distance, the wind stirring Legolas's long fair hair on his shoulders. His profile was nearly perfect. "That must have been weird for him," he said, "considering," and wouldn't say any more, even when Viggo, after glancing around to make sure they were alone, brushed his hair back and leaned close to kiss his ear and his neck.
He's pretty sure now that he was already in love with Orli then.
When he's getting ready to leave, after he hugs Viggo but before he hugs Elijah, Sean looks into his eyes and says: "Call him." By that time, Viggo has decided he will. He nods and smiles, and Sean, who was being very brave and thought Viggo might get annoyed, looks relieved before he turns to hug Elijah--or rather, to be captured in Elijah's arms and let Elijah hold him. He smiles at them for a while, but Viggo can't stand to watch too long.
He closes the curtains before he leaves, the last to go, plunging the living room into murky dimness again, and locks the door behind him. The snow is partly melted, and crushed flat on the road by the tires of Elijah's and Sean's vehicles.
There is a stray cat in his yard when Viggo gets home, and when he calls it, it lets him scratch its ears, so he lets it in and gives it a saucer of milk on the kitchen floor, next to the heating vent. It looks up at him, blinking wide green eyes and purring, before it bends its face and starts making lapping noises. Viggo strokes its side with his bare foot, and he can count its ribs, and feel them vibrating with its purring. It's a little wet--some of its fur stands out in damp spikes, darkening its cream and orange marmalade stripes to a sort of rusty cinnamon color in places. He picks up the phone. He has never forgotten Orli's number, though he has not called it for so long.
"Hello?"
"Orlando," he says, and thinks he should have cleared his throat, and then that he should have said "Orli" after all if there was any way he could have made himself.
"Viggo," he says blankly. There is a pause. "Viggo," Orli repeats, with a tone of pleased surprise starting to filter into his voice.
He doesn't sound angry. It has been a long time. "Yeah," Viggo says. "How are you?"
"Oh, I'm--I--alright. I don't really know," he says a little shakily, "actually."
Viggo smiles and his eyes close. "You should figure it out," he scolds gently.
Orli laughs a little. "Viggo. Wow. Hey--what about you? How are things?"
Viggo picks up the empty saucer and strokes the cat. Something makes him reply, "As well as can be expected."
"Oh?" Orli says softly.
"I think so."
"What have you been working on?" He asks, sounding more certain of himself. His accent comes through.
"Not much," Viggo replies wryly. "Failing to learn batik. I was writing for a while, but I'm not entirely pleased with the result."
"I'm sure you're being too hard on yourself," says Orli.
"I don't think so." He pauses. "And you?"
"Well, I'm in the last week of a shoot." Viggo can't stop himself from wondering about new set romances, but he won't ask that. He's always done everything in the wrong order with Orli. If the right moment presents itself later--if it has a chance to--then maybe he'll ask.
"Really," he says, and Orli proceeds to tell him about the film. He's pretty enthusiastic.
Viggo, who is really interested in the film, asks the appropriate questions and basks in the sound of Orli's voice. He also opens a can of tuna for the cat, writes "cat food" on his shopping list, and puts the kettle on while Orli is talking.
"You'll like it," Orli finishes, not the first time he's said that about it.
"I'll definitely see it," Viggo tells him.
"What are you doing?"
Viggo is looking at the cat. "I just got a cat," he says, because he can't seem to get around to why he called.
Orli exclaims, "You did?"
"Mm-hm. It was in the yard when I got home. It's starving."
"No shit!" He sounds delighted. Then, "Say," he says, "Is it orange?"
"More or less. Let me tell you, it's a very Elvish-looking sort of cat. It would almost have matched your hair."
"My wig," Orli says. "But it's orange?"
Viggo leans down and picks the cat up. It goes limp in his hand, and it doesn't seem to weigh quite five pounds. He thinks it's not all the way adult yet. It drapes over his hand, and settles against his chest, purring, and tries to rub its face on his chin. Viggo laughs. "It's an orange tabby, I think, but it's really a creamy strawberry-blonde color. Or it will be, when it's had a bath."
"Name it Marmalade."
Viggo, startled, laughs again, and Marmalade looks up at him, still purring, and blinks twice. "Orli..."
"Seriously," he interrupts. "I've always wanted to do that. It'd be a good joke."
Viggo shakes his head. "Marmalade it is." He scratches between the cat's ears and it pushes its head against his hand.
"Really?" Orli sounds pleased.
He pets Marmalade absently. "Yeah."
There's a pause, and then Orli clears his throat. "It feels like forever..."
Viggo says, "I know."
"I mean, really, really... fuck, three years."
Viggo doesn't know what to say. He thinks "Sorry" isn't it, but he says that anyway.
He can hear Orli breathing for a second. Then he replies quietly, "So am I."
There's a silence, and a while when they talk about New Year's and Christmas and family, and things like that. The kettle whistles, and Viggo makes a pot of tea. But finally Orli says, "So... what's up?"
And Viggo replies, "Well, I was wondering if you still haven't been on a real road trip."
He laughs quietly. "In Europe!"
"No," Viggo says firmly, "Europe does not count. We've talked about this before."
"Then," says Orli, "I haven't."
Viggo takes a breath. "How do you feel about the beach?"
There's another pause, and Viggo realizes Orli is probably smoking, or just now lighting a cigarette. "You mean going there," Orli says.
Viggo is amused. "Yes."
"I like it," he says cautiously.
I can't believe I'm doing this, Viggo thinks, but he has counted on the fact that once he started this, he wouldn't stop it. "What about," he continues, "a road trip to the beach, with an old man?"
Orli's voice is quieter again, and maybe a bit unsteady, when he answers, "I don't know about that, but I wouldn't mind going with you."
"Good," Viggo says softly, and buries his face in Marmalade's fur. He can smell cat and dirt. It smells warm, if that makes sense. He takes a deep breath and tries to calm down.
"When?" Orli says.
"When can you be here?"