Twelve days of Christmas: Day six
The little AU: Twelve Days of Christmas: Day six
slashfairy
G
~~
They talk about flying home for the New Year's, but decide that London is just as good a place as any to start 2007 in, really. Karl grumbles about the weather being all wrong, the days too short, the nights too long, but they begin to disabuse him of that notion as the long quiet time fills out Viggo's cheeks, erases the bags from under Orlando's eyes, and they find the good circular energy they've come to count on beginning to build up again among them.
It's never been about endless smutty sex (though that's entered into it, for sure) or about who's topping whom, or who's had more turns with whom. It's been about compassion, about need and recognizing it, about grace and giving it in whatever way seems best at the time. If it means Vig goes through a spell where he wants his wrists bound, they do that for him. If it means Karl's funny about his nipples, well, they accommodate that.
Now it means letting Orli get his innocence back- not shy innocence, but elastic innocence, the innocence of someone who's curious, experimental, but pure in some way, innocent of using pleasure to cause pain. Not physical pain, either, but that heart-crushing grief that comes when your dreams have come true and they aren't what you meant them to be at all but are their polar opposite and every breath hurts and every thought says you've betrayed yourself and everyone who loves you, or worse, someone's betrayed your dreams and it's because you never deserved them in the first place, so any pleasure you gave was flawed, and any you had, tainted. Such hard work, recovering innocence lost to that kind of cruel use by life... life, after all, doesn't care. Life's purpose is to continue, not to individually nurture each one of us. That we have to do for ourselves, or if we are very fortunate, have others in our lives who understand that need, and are happy to fill it. Sometimes it's parents, often not. Sometimes a lover... often, not. Most often it will be friends, companions on the path between there and here and there, the endless infinity of life's wheel. Existence and that first breath, most of the time, are givens; everything else is added, or has to be solved for.
So they start by solving for Orlando. What he wants, what he doesn't. He needs quiet, so they don't talk much, but he needs not to be alone, so someone's always nearby. Not too near- he's not needing babysitting for fuck's sakes- but not too far, in case he feels himself fading to nothing and needs to catch a glimpse of himself in their eyes. Reassurance is good, but not false praise; being wanted for himself, not his looks or his talent or his cock but just the presence, the existence, of him, is very good. Letting him voice his doubts, his anger, his disappointment in himself, his longings, without judging his feelings, without arguing with him, or trying to fix anything, is the hardest work either of them have ever done, but it's the most important, the most essential, so they do their best, and in between, they love him.
"It may be a long time, Karl," Viggo says to him as they lounge in the big hotel tub after having put Orli to bed with much love and many, many well-placed kisses.
"How long's long?" Karl asks, always the one who wants, needs, to fix things before they scare him so much he can't function.
"Dunno. Took me... oh. Year, two maybe. Lost is a hard place to be, especially if you've lost yourself. How do you find your way home?" He looks down at the water in the big tub, their bodies offset in the refraction of it, and wavering with the ripples their breathing makes.
"Well. Here's to 2007 anyway, then. May it see us to 2008 without incident." Karl lifts his beer, toasts, and smiles. "And may 2008 see us to 2009, and so on, until... well. Until."
"Until what?" says a soft sleepy voice overhead as Orli slips into the water, tangling up in them all unself-conscious and comfortable.
"Until you, love, until you," says Viggo, knowing they're looking at him as they often do, as though he's off his rocker even when in their hearts they know every word describes exactly what they're feeling.
"I'm here," Orlando says, leaning his head back, rolling his shoulders, loosening his neck, breathing.
"So you are, love," says Karl. "So you are."
And so he is, for now. And that's enough to keep the energy circulating among them, keep the current generating life, keep them living. Life doesn't care about us, particularly. But we care about living, and that makes all the difference.
previously:
next: day seven
slashfairy
G
~~
They talk about flying home for the New Year's, but decide that London is just as good a place as any to start 2007 in, really. Karl grumbles about the weather being all wrong, the days too short, the nights too long, but they begin to disabuse him of that notion as the long quiet time fills out Viggo's cheeks, erases the bags from under Orlando's eyes, and they find the good circular energy they've come to count on beginning to build up again among them.
It's never been about endless smutty sex (though that's entered into it, for sure) or about who's topping whom, or who's had more turns with whom. It's been about compassion, about need and recognizing it, about grace and giving it in whatever way seems best at the time. If it means Vig goes through a spell where he wants his wrists bound, they do that for him. If it means Karl's funny about his nipples, well, they accommodate that.
Now it means letting Orli get his innocence back- not shy innocence, but elastic innocence, the innocence of someone who's curious, experimental, but pure in some way, innocent of using pleasure to cause pain. Not physical pain, either, but that heart-crushing grief that comes when your dreams have come true and they aren't what you meant them to be at all but are their polar opposite and every breath hurts and every thought says you've betrayed yourself and everyone who loves you, or worse, someone's betrayed your dreams and it's because you never deserved them in the first place, so any pleasure you gave was flawed, and any you had, tainted. Such hard work, recovering innocence lost to that kind of cruel use by life... life, after all, doesn't care. Life's purpose is to continue, not to individually nurture each one of us. That we have to do for ourselves, or if we are very fortunate, have others in our lives who understand that need, and are happy to fill it. Sometimes it's parents, often not. Sometimes a lover... often, not. Most often it will be friends, companions on the path between there and here and there, the endless infinity of life's wheel. Existence and that first breath, most of the time, are givens; everything else is added, or has to be solved for.
So they start by solving for Orlando. What he wants, what he doesn't. He needs quiet, so they don't talk much, but he needs not to be alone, so someone's always nearby. Not too near- he's not needing babysitting for fuck's sakes- but not too far, in case he feels himself fading to nothing and needs to catch a glimpse of himself in their eyes. Reassurance is good, but not false praise; being wanted for himself, not his looks or his talent or his cock but just the presence, the existence, of him, is very good. Letting him voice his doubts, his anger, his disappointment in himself, his longings, without judging his feelings, without arguing with him, or trying to fix anything, is the hardest work either of them have ever done, but it's the most important, the most essential, so they do their best, and in between, they love him.
"It may be a long time, Karl," Viggo says to him as they lounge in the big hotel tub after having put Orli to bed with much love and many, many well-placed kisses.
"How long's long?" Karl asks, always the one who wants, needs, to fix things before they scare him so much he can't function.
"Dunno. Took me... oh. Year, two maybe. Lost is a hard place to be, especially if you've lost yourself. How do you find your way home?" He looks down at the water in the big tub, their bodies offset in the refraction of it, and wavering with the ripples their breathing makes.
"Well. Here's to 2007 anyway, then. May it see us to 2008 without incident." Karl lifts his beer, toasts, and smiles. "And may 2008 see us to 2009, and so on, until... well. Until."
"Until what?" says a soft sleepy voice overhead as Orli slips into the water, tangling up in them all unself-conscious and comfortable.
"Until you, love, until you," says Viggo, knowing they're looking at him as they often do, as though he's off his rocker even when in their hearts they know every word describes exactly what they're feeling.
"I'm here," Orlando says, leaning his head back, rolling his shoulders, loosening his neck, breathing.
"So you are, love," says Karl. "So you are."
And so he is, for now. And that's enough to keep the energy circulating among them, keep the current generating life, keep them living. Life doesn't care about us, particularly. But we care about living, and that makes all the difference.
previously:
next: day seven