FIC: Shadowing My Dreams 4/5 (Lotrips, Viggo/Orlando, PG-13)
Shadowing My Dreams 4/5
Author: padawanhilary and telesilla
Fandom/Pairing: Lotrips, Viggo/Orlando
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,337
Disclaimer: Not RL; didn't happen. If you think this has anything to do with the real actors involved, then you need to put down the crack pipe.
Summary: Orlando finally asks Viggo for his name and, in a roundabout way, learns just who the mysterious man in his dreams is.
Notes: Because we love us a nice cliché, we've decided to try our hands at a Viggo/Orlando ghost fic. The title is from the song "Ghost" by the Indigo Girls.
Previous Chapters
Orlando spends several minutes each day from there on out, pre-tea, post-waking, diligently logging his dreams. They seem to be...consecutive and ongoing, really, and though Orlando is no more a dream interpreter than he is a writer, he thinks that might be odd.
I have, however, just come into a new home, put my old one on the market and temporarily adopted a life I've never lived before. That just might lend itself to odd dreaming.
He's noticed that his dreams have become more heated as the nights go by, though. His fascination with the stranger has driven him to bed earlier and earlier, and he no longer makes any pretense at reading, let alone trying to make the telly work. He goes straight to bed, lights out and eyes shut.
So here he is again, not on the road and not in the gazebo but on a little blanket -- no, a checked tablecloth, a throwback to bygone picnics. He and his stranger are in a field on a gentle hill, watching the clouds go by and picking at food that interests neither of them as much as the other does.
"You're quiet," Viggo says after a moment spent watching Orlando nibble on cucumber sandwich. "Is everything all right?" As the nights have gone on, Viggo's become more and more entranced by Orlando until now all he does is wait for the time when Orlando lies down to sleep. It's not just the physical side of it--as stunning and overwhelming as it is--but he's genuinely enjoying Orlando's company as well.
"Everything's fine," Orlando smiles, though even to him it feels a bit false so he lets it falls away. "We feel so different. We..." For a moment, he looks at that handsome, unusual face, those blue eyes, and then he takes the man's hand. "Who are you?"
This the moment Viggo has been dreading when he's alone, but now that it's here, he's caught with nothing to say. "I can't tell you," he finally says. "Not here and now." He swallows hard. "But you're right to ask; you should know."
Maybe it's Orlando's need to be with this man -- and it feels right to admit to it as a need, not a desire or an urge -- that keeps him here in spite of a clear answer. There's no question, though: he wants to stay.
"But we're different," he says, almost a question, watching the man's eyes. "You can tell me that much."
"Ah, but you already know that," Viggo can't resist saying. "So I don't have to tell you." He reaches for Orlando's hand. "I do care about you, far more deeply than ever expected to."
Orlando doesn't know what to do with that, even here. He wants to return it, but suddenly he is utterly and deeply confused. "You don't have to tell me," he says, though even that disappoints him somewhat.
Instead of more words, more discussion, he turns to his stranger and kisses him. This much he knows. This much he can handle.
This isn't the first time Orlando's taken the lead, but it still thrills Viggo, and he moans into Orlando's mouth. For all his youth, Orlando is obviously no novice at love and Viggo's glad to have met someone he can approach as an equal. This is more than mere lust of the body, he thinks, reaching up and tangling his fingers in Orlando's hair.
Just the way this stranger touches Orlando turns him on madly, and the kisses are downright addictive. He presses closer, this time sliding his hands around to the man's back and pulling him tight, fingers dragging a little against the back of his shirt.
"Yes," Viggo mumbles against Orlando's mouth, wanting to encourage him as much as possible. He keeps his own hands--currently resting on Orlando's slim hips--gentle, resisting the urge to grip Orlando tightly.
It feels so good, so intense, that even this simple snogging is enough to make Orlando ache fiercely. He thinks, somehow, that he's already infatuated, though that seems faintly impossible. He squirms, liking the way his new lover's hands feel on him as they kiss.
Pulling back a little, Viggo reaches up to slide Orlando's jacket off, a little amused that Orlando dresses more formally in dreams than he does in his waking life. Maybe because this is what he was wearing when we met? The subconscious is a strange place and Viggo decides to think about that a little later, when he's not trying to get at Orlando's skin.
Somehow, that prompts Orlando to move, really act on this, and he tugs at the man's shirt, opening the buttons as quickly as he can manage without just tearing the shirt open. It's a nice shirt; Orlando hasn't seen one quite like it before, but once he gets skin and hair and nipples exposed, he stops thinking about the shirt and latches onto one of those nipples, sucking avidly as he toys with the other one, fingertips pinching and twisting.
"Oh God," Viggo moans, his head tilting back. He braces himself on one hand, still trying to caress Orlando through his shirt, although he's enjoying Orlando's touch enough that his efforts are minimal at best. "So good," he adds, bending a little to nuzzle at Orlando's curly hair.
"Yes," Orlando sighs, and he presses his tongue up, catching that nipple between his upper teeth and his tongue. "Mmm." He wraps an arm around Viggo's waist, holding him close by the small of the back.
It's so novel to be touched like this after all this time, and Viggo wants to just relax and let Orlando do what he will. But that's hardly the gentlemanly thing to so, and so Viggo tugs at Orlando's shirt, trying to pull it free of his trousers without disturbing Orlando too much.
He manages after a moment and then contorts a little to run his hand up along Orlando's chest, finally reaching a nipple. Teasing at it lightly, Viggo murmured into Orlando's hair. "You have beautiful skin."
Orlando moans softly, arching a little and dragging his teeth more firmly across that nipple in his mouth. He raises his head after a moment and takes the stranger's mouth hard in a long, deep, hungry kiss, biting and sucking.
Viggo's fingers go tight on Orlando's nipple for a moment before he catches himself. He wants Orlando now, wants him fiercely, and it's getting more and more difficult to remember that he doesn't want to take Orlando while Orlando doesn't know who Viggo is.
There's so much sheer, hot desire here that Orlando just lets himself get lost in the kiss for a moment before he's scrabbling for a way into the stranger's trousers. He wants this so badly, even without a name to go alongside the incredible kisses.
"No," Viggo says, although really, it's the last thing he wants to say. "Not until...we can't. Not now." He looks down. "I'm sorry." He knows he should tell Orlando who he is, but here, in this dreamscape, Orlando will only think it's part of the dream. And I can't talk to him out in the real world until he calls me. Viggo sighs. "I don't...I can't take you lightly as if you were just an amusing diversion."
Orlando knows he can't press the issue. He sighs, drawing back just a little, though he does lean in once more for another kiss. "Why not now?" he asks softly, stroking a hand down his stranger's face.
"Because you won't believe me here," Viggo explains. "But I can tell you where to start and maybe you'll remember."
"Tell me, then. Please." Orlando watches the man's eyes, wishing he could find a way to make this less complicated than it seems to be.
"The attic," Viggo says, his heart pounding, as he pulls back and stares into Orlando's dark eyes. "You need to look in the attic." He reaches out and brushes a hand across Orlando's face. "Try to remember," he murmurs before letting himself fade back into the real world. A misnomer if ever there was one, he thinks, looking down at the bed where Orlando lies sleeping. Seeing as how things are far more real in his dreams than they are here.
In his sleep, Orlando frowns, letting out a dissatisfied grunt. In the dream, he stares around, blinking, and then he stands. His shirt is done up again without his permission and he's alone again.
Why would I not remember to look in the attic? he wonders. And what's in there?
~ ~ ~ ~
When Orlando wakes, it's with an odd, nagging sense that the dream he just had is important. Did he tell me to go to the attic?
He hauls himself out of bed and heads upstairs, pausing only for his morning piss and a quick rinse. He doesn't bother to brush his teeth or even throw on a robe; it should be warm enough up there.
It makes him wonder whether he's losing his damned mind -- though he doesn't stop climbing the steps. He's realized in the weeks since he came that the dreams are recurring quite regularly, almost every night, and always about the same man in the same suit on the same idyllic day. Just like the day of Dex's funeral.
He opens the creaky, almost cliché attic door, and where he expected heat and dust he finds himself surprised: it's actually quite cool up here, as well as surprisingly clean. Immediately he's looking for...What the hell am I looking for, anyway?
Something tells him this mystery will end up being solved out of a box, so he starts with those. There are several of them and the dream's already fading, that hot combination of lust and affection disappearing slowly. He tries to hurry, but as on other days he's already resisting the urge to just go back to bed.
I might find him again, he thinks, and he very nearly abandons his search. In the end, though -- an hour later, that is -- he's giving up the boxes to move on to the old rolltop desk. There must be a reason he told me to come up here.
Chafing at his inability to speak with Orlando, Viggo's been hovering in a corner waiting to see if Orlando will keep searching long enough to find in information he needs. He supposes he should feel fear or shame at the idea that soon Orlando will know who--and what--he's dealing with, but frankly, Viggo's tired of petting sessions in dreams.
Careful not to come into contact with Orlando, Viggo drifts over to watch as Orlando searches the desk. The last person to know Viggo's secret, to actually speak to him, was Dexter's sister Lucy, but she died as a young woman and Viggo's neither spoken to or been seen by anyone since then. He's eager, unable to stay in one place for any length of time as Orlando finally finds the bundle of newspapers and the album of clippings and photographs.
The newspapers are all meticulously stacked and rolled, edges perfectly aligned. They're yellowed in spite of that, and quite brittle. For that reason, Orlando is glad that they weren't folded: the papers would simply crack and disintegrate down the seams.
Something tells him that this is the answer, though, so he unrolls the papers carefully on the floor, scanning through them quickly.
And then, there it is: halfway down the front page is the headline "AMERICAN ARTIST SLAIN IN INDUSTRIALIST'S HOME" and a surprisingly clear photograph of the man from Orlando's dreams: Viggo Mortensen.
Pulling in a shocked breath, Orlando reads the article meticulously, then reads it again. Most of the phrasing is discreet, but the gist is clear: the questionable relationship involving the revered industrialist's son, the enraged father...the pieces snap together with perfect clarity.
Except for the part where the man I've been snogging in my dreams is dead. How that's happening has me completely confused.
Hands shaking, Orlando grabs up the album. "I know you're in here, too," he mutters, knowing now that the reason he's done so much talking to himself is because yes, someone is listening. Sure enough, there are several pages dedicated to carefully-placed photographs of the American artist.
Orlando stares at the images until he realizes he's not quite seeing anything anymore. He shuts the album, rolls up the papers (and he tries for a moment to align them just the way they were, but fails) and sits a moment longer, staring at the hardwood floor.
"Why the fuck couldn't you just tell me?" he asks the room, hurting in a way he couldn't possibly explain. I've fallen for someone I can never touch, he thinks miserably, but that much he won't say aloud. He's given enough, he thinks.
Say my name, Viggo thinks, wishing Orlando could hear him. He'd learned that rule early on, when a housemaid had been gossiping to the chauffeur and Viggo had had to duck very quickly out of sight because he'd felt himself coalescing in some strange way. He hadn't been fast enough and both servants had given notice that very day, leading to the rumors that the house was haunted.
Orlando has an odd feeling then, an idea that he could....
"But that's ridiculous," he says aloud. "Like Bloody Mary legends. As if saying 'Viggo Mortensen' will bring him about."
Unlike the first time, Viggo knows what to expect and he holds himself still as he feels the strange resonances that make up what little form he has, swirl thickly around him. "I'm sorry," is the first thing he says.
Orlando feels himself go chilly and gray even as his heart seems to explode into a racing beat. He scrambles backward, hands and ass scooting on the attic floor as he tries to cringe away from the -- from the -- Jesus Christ Almighty, it's true.
Viggo remains in place, looking down at himself curiously. He can't be seen in mirrors and even though Lucy once tried to photograph him, there was nothing but a blur, as if the chemicals had remained on the paper for too long. He knows that, according to her at least, he looks like "fog in the lamplight on a dark night when there's a little breeze off the river and you think you see someone only to realize you're looking at no one."
"I'm sorry," he says again, missing Lucy rather profoundly right now. "I can go back to my room and be there as long as you want me to stay away."
"How?" Orlando asks rather stupidly. "Why me?" There's so much more behind the question: Why choose me to seduce when surely you could find someone more suited?
And then he has to correct: More dead. Less alive. More on your plane of existence. Orlando realizes distantly that he's in a kind of shock.
"Because you're beautiful and lonely and something in you draws me," Viggo answers honestly. "Because I...I don't really know. There's just something about you."
That takes the wind out of Orlando's sails. "I'm not lonely," he says, though the argument sounds feeble to his own ears. "I like being here." But then he realizes that he likes being here because Viggo -- and God, doesn't it feel good to have a name to go with that face, that feeling? -- has made him feel welcome.
Orlando looks up at Viggo, at the mist that somehow makes him up. "I don't know what to say," he murmurs.
"Whatever you like," Viggo says quietly. "Had I ever felt you didn't want the dreams to take the form they did, I would have gone." He looks at Orlando, missing the ability to breathe; heaving a big sigh would feel very good right now. "You do understand why I pulled away last night?"
Orlando does, completely, though it's not much good. "I only wish you'd done it sooner," he says without thinking, and he looks up at Viggo's grayish form. "I think I'm in love with you, and we can't...I thought..."
You thought what? he wonders. That a dream lover was somehow more real than this? "We can't be together," he finally says, staring at the floor.
"Why not?" Viggo asks, staring at Orlando while the words "I think I'm in love with you" seem to echo around the attic.
"Well how the fuck can we?" Orlando spits, abruptly and unreasonably angry. He pushes up and stands. "Are you able to be here? Now?" Lunging forward, he proves his own point by swiping his hand through the immaterial mist that is Viggo.
That's always a startling feeling and for a moment Viggo loses cohesiveness. "No," he admits, "but we've been together every night."
Surprised, Orlando stares. "So that's it?" he asks. "Dreams? Is that...all?" Once the words are out he wishes he could recall them: they hurt. He knows it.
"Orlando, I can give you my undivided attention. I can talk with you during the day, or sleep when you're away, and we can have our nights together in your dreams." Viggo stretches out one misty hand. "I'll love you as much...more than I've loved anyone before. Is it really so different than what you would have with a live lover?" Even as he asks, he knows it is, and he tries not to think of a day when he has to watch Orlando leave the house to be with someone he can touch while he's awake.
"I'm sorry," Orlando says immediately. He stands, shaking his head and then looking up at Viggo. Viggo. The name just sounds good, even inside Orlando's head. He holds his hand out hesitantly. "I'm sorry," he says with a bit more weight. He doesn't know if he can do this but he damn sure wants to try.
"Lucy used to say touching me felt like dipping her hand into the North Sea in winter," Viggo said, holding out his hand.
"I don't care." Orlando pushes his hand out insistently and feels the frigid damp envelope it. He barely restrains a curse. "Viggo," he breathes, shivering, "there's got to be a way to get past this."
"There isn't, I don't think." Viggo said. "I don't know. It's rather isolated out here; I've never met another...anyone else like me."
Orlando sighs, dropping his hand. He wants there to be some romantic resolution, but this is the real world. There isn't one. "It's just the dreams, then?"
"Just the dreams?" Viggo says, looking at Orlando. "The last time I spent any time in dreams was before your Aunt Lucy was married. We used to picnic together and she'd tell me all her secrets." He smiles at Orlando. "It was all very innocent--I've never been one for women--but I could feel things...water and grass and her hand and the picnic basket." he sighs. "And that was what, 40, 50 years ago?
"They may be 'just' dreams to you Orlando, but the last two weeks have meant more to me than anything that happened after my death."
Orlando has no response for that. He feels alone now, more so than he did before, as though he'd cultivated something that died before it could bear fruit.
"I'm sorry," he sighs, shaking his head and stepping back. "I need..." More than that. He raises his hands, unable to look at Viggo. "I'm sorry."
"So am I," Viggo says. "I'd give you more if I could." As he lets himself dissipate, he bows a little. "Thank you for allowing me to touch you."
Orlando reaches out, but it's too late. He realizes abruptly, also too late, that it's colder with Viggo gone. Sighing, chest aching, he stares at the papers he's unearthed for a moment, then leaves them untouched to head back down to the bedroom. He's going to go back to sleep, but now it's just to forget himself for a little while.
-tbc-
Author: padawanhilary and telesilla
Fandom/Pairing: Lotrips, Viggo/Orlando
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,337
Disclaimer: Not RL; didn't happen. If you think this has anything to do with the real actors involved, then you need to put down the crack pipe.
Summary: Orlando finally asks Viggo for his name and, in a roundabout way, learns just who the mysterious man in his dreams is.
Notes: Because we love us a nice cliché, we've decided to try our hands at a Viggo/Orlando ghost fic. The title is from the song "Ghost" by the Indigo Girls.
Previous Chapters
Orlando spends several minutes each day from there on out, pre-tea, post-waking, diligently logging his dreams. They seem to be...consecutive and ongoing, really, and though Orlando is no more a dream interpreter than he is a writer, he thinks that might be odd.
I have, however, just come into a new home, put my old one on the market and temporarily adopted a life I've never lived before. That just might lend itself to odd dreaming.
He's noticed that his dreams have become more heated as the nights go by, though. His fascination with the stranger has driven him to bed earlier and earlier, and he no longer makes any pretense at reading, let alone trying to make the telly work. He goes straight to bed, lights out and eyes shut.
So here he is again, not on the road and not in the gazebo but on a little blanket -- no, a checked tablecloth, a throwback to bygone picnics. He and his stranger are in a field on a gentle hill, watching the clouds go by and picking at food that interests neither of them as much as the other does.
"You're quiet," Viggo says after a moment spent watching Orlando nibble on cucumber sandwich. "Is everything all right?" As the nights have gone on, Viggo's become more and more entranced by Orlando until now all he does is wait for the time when Orlando lies down to sleep. It's not just the physical side of it--as stunning and overwhelming as it is--but he's genuinely enjoying Orlando's company as well.
"Everything's fine," Orlando smiles, though even to him it feels a bit false so he lets it falls away. "We feel so different. We..." For a moment, he looks at that handsome, unusual face, those blue eyes, and then he takes the man's hand. "Who are you?"
This the moment Viggo has been dreading when he's alone, but now that it's here, he's caught with nothing to say. "I can't tell you," he finally says. "Not here and now." He swallows hard. "But you're right to ask; you should know."
Maybe it's Orlando's need to be with this man -- and it feels right to admit to it as a need, not a desire or an urge -- that keeps him here in spite of a clear answer. There's no question, though: he wants to stay.
"But we're different," he says, almost a question, watching the man's eyes. "You can tell me that much."
"Ah, but you already know that," Viggo can't resist saying. "So I don't have to tell you." He reaches for Orlando's hand. "I do care about you, far more deeply than ever expected to."
Orlando doesn't know what to do with that, even here. He wants to return it, but suddenly he is utterly and deeply confused. "You don't have to tell me," he says, though even that disappoints him somewhat.
Instead of more words, more discussion, he turns to his stranger and kisses him. This much he knows. This much he can handle.
This isn't the first time Orlando's taken the lead, but it still thrills Viggo, and he moans into Orlando's mouth. For all his youth, Orlando is obviously no novice at love and Viggo's glad to have met someone he can approach as an equal. This is more than mere lust of the body, he thinks, reaching up and tangling his fingers in Orlando's hair.
Just the way this stranger touches Orlando turns him on madly, and the kisses are downright addictive. He presses closer, this time sliding his hands around to the man's back and pulling him tight, fingers dragging a little against the back of his shirt.
"Yes," Viggo mumbles against Orlando's mouth, wanting to encourage him as much as possible. He keeps his own hands--currently resting on Orlando's slim hips--gentle, resisting the urge to grip Orlando tightly.
It feels so good, so intense, that even this simple snogging is enough to make Orlando ache fiercely. He thinks, somehow, that he's already infatuated, though that seems faintly impossible. He squirms, liking the way his new lover's hands feel on him as they kiss.
Pulling back a little, Viggo reaches up to slide Orlando's jacket off, a little amused that Orlando dresses more formally in dreams than he does in his waking life. Maybe because this is what he was wearing when we met? The subconscious is a strange place and Viggo decides to think about that a little later, when he's not trying to get at Orlando's skin.
Somehow, that prompts Orlando to move, really act on this, and he tugs at the man's shirt, opening the buttons as quickly as he can manage without just tearing the shirt open. It's a nice shirt; Orlando hasn't seen one quite like it before, but once he gets skin and hair and nipples exposed, he stops thinking about the shirt and latches onto one of those nipples, sucking avidly as he toys with the other one, fingertips pinching and twisting.
"Oh God," Viggo moans, his head tilting back. He braces himself on one hand, still trying to caress Orlando through his shirt, although he's enjoying Orlando's touch enough that his efforts are minimal at best. "So good," he adds, bending a little to nuzzle at Orlando's curly hair.
"Yes," Orlando sighs, and he presses his tongue up, catching that nipple between his upper teeth and his tongue. "Mmm." He wraps an arm around Viggo's waist, holding him close by the small of the back.
It's so novel to be touched like this after all this time, and Viggo wants to just relax and let Orlando do what he will. But that's hardly the gentlemanly thing to so, and so Viggo tugs at Orlando's shirt, trying to pull it free of his trousers without disturbing Orlando too much.
He manages after a moment and then contorts a little to run his hand up along Orlando's chest, finally reaching a nipple. Teasing at it lightly, Viggo murmured into Orlando's hair. "You have beautiful skin."
Orlando moans softly, arching a little and dragging his teeth more firmly across that nipple in his mouth. He raises his head after a moment and takes the stranger's mouth hard in a long, deep, hungry kiss, biting and sucking.
Viggo's fingers go tight on Orlando's nipple for a moment before he catches himself. He wants Orlando now, wants him fiercely, and it's getting more and more difficult to remember that he doesn't want to take Orlando while Orlando doesn't know who Viggo is.
There's so much sheer, hot desire here that Orlando just lets himself get lost in the kiss for a moment before he's scrabbling for a way into the stranger's trousers. He wants this so badly, even without a name to go alongside the incredible kisses.
"No," Viggo says, although really, it's the last thing he wants to say. "Not until...we can't. Not now." He looks down. "I'm sorry." He knows he should tell Orlando who he is, but here, in this dreamscape, Orlando will only think it's part of the dream. And I can't talk to him out in the real world until he calls me. Viggo sighs. "I don't...I can't take you lightly as if you were just an amusing diversion."
Orlando knows he can't press the issue. He sighs, drawing back just a little, though he does lean in once more for another kiss. "Why not now?" he asks softly, stroking a hand down his stranger's face.
"Because you won't believe me here," Viggo explains. "But I can tell you where to start and maybe you'll remember."
"Tell me, then. Please." Orlando watches the man's eyes, wishing he could find a way to make this less complicated than it seems to be.
"The attic," Viggo says, his heart pounding, as he pulls back and stares into Orlando's dark eyes. "You need to look in the attic." He reaches out and brushes a hand across Orlando's face. "Try to remember," he murmurs before letting himself fade back into the real world. A misnomer if ever there was one, he thinks, looking down at the bed where Orlando lies sleeping. Seeing as how things are far more real in his dreams than they are here.
In his sleep, Orlando frowns, letting out a dissatisfied grunt. In the dream, he stares around, blinking, and then he stands. His shirt is done up again without his permission and he's alone again.
Why would I not remember to look in the attic? he wonders. And what's in there?
~ ~ ~ ~
When Orlando wakes, it's with an odd, nagging sense that the dream he just had is important. Did he tell me to go to the attic?
He hauls himself out of bed and heads upstairs, pausing only for his morning piss and a quick rinse. He doesn't bother to brush his teeth or even throw on a robe; it should be warm enough up there.
It makes him wonder whether he's losing his damned mind -- though he doesn't stop climbing the steps. He's realized in the weeks since he came that the dreams are recurring quite regularly, almost every night, and always about the same man in the same suit on the same idyllic day. Just like the day of Dex's funeral.
He opens the creaky, almost cliché attic door, and where he expected heat and dust he finds himself surprised: it's actually quite cool up here, as well as surprisingly clean. Immediately he's looking for...What the hell am I looking for, anyway?
Something tells him this mystery will end up being solved out of a box, so he starts with those. There are several of them and the dream's already fading, that hot combination of lust and affection disappearing slowly. He tries to hurry, but as on other days he's already resisting the urge to just go back to bed.
I might find him again, he thinks, and he very nearly abandons his search. In the end, though -- an hour later, that is -- he's giving up the boxes to move on to the old rolltop desk. There must be a reason he told me to come up here.
Chafing at his inability to speak with Orlando, Viggo's been hovering in a corner waiting to see if Orlando will keep searching long enough to find in information he needs. He supposes he should feel fear or shame at the idea that soon Orlando will know who--and what--he's dealing with, but frankly, Viggo's tired of petting sessions in dreams.
Careful not to come into contact with Orlando, Viggo drifts over to watch as Orlando searches the desk. The last person to know Viggo's secret, to actually speak to him, was Dexter's sister Lucy, but she died as a young woman and Viggo's neither spoken to or been seen by anyone since then. He's eager, unable to stay in one place for any length of time as Orlando finally finds the bundle of newspapers and the album of clippings and photographs.
The newspapers are all meticulously stacked and rolled, edges perfectly aligned. They're yellowed in spite of that, and quite brittle. For that reason, Orlando is glad that they weren't folded: the papers would simply crack and disintegrate down the seams.
Something tells him that this is the answer, though, so he unrolls the papers carefully on the floor, scanning through them quickly.
And then, there it is: halfway down the front page is the headline "AMERICAN ARTIST SLAIN IN INDUSTRIALIST'S HOME" and a surprisingly clear photograph of the man from Orlando's dreams: Viggo Mortensen.
Pulling in a shocked breath, Orlando reads the article meticulously, then reads it again. Most of the phrasing is discreet, but the gist is clear: the questionable relationship involving the revered industrialist's son, the enraged father...the pieces snap together with perfect clarity.
Except for the part where the man I've been snogging in my dreams is dead. How that's happening has me completely confused.
Hands shaking, Orlando grabs up the album. "I know you're in here, too," he mutters, knowing now that the reason he's done so much talking to himself is because yes, someone is listening. Sure enough, there are several pages dedicated to carefully-placed photographs of the American artist.
Orlando stares at the images until he realizes he's not quite seeing anything anymore. He shuts the album, rolls up the papers (and he tries for a moment to align them just the way they were, but fails) and sits a moment longer, staring at the hardwood floor.
"Why the fuck couldn't you just tell me?" he asks the room, hurting in a way he couldn't possibly explain. I've fallen for someone I can never touch, he thinks miserably, but that much he won't say aloud. He's given enough, he thinks.
Say my name, Viggo thinks, wishing Orlando could hear him. He'd learned that rule early on, when a housemaid had been gossiping to the chauffeur and Viggo had had to duck very quickly out of sight because he'd felt himself coalescing in some strange way. He hadn't been fast enough and both servants had given notice that very day, leading to the rumors that the house was haunted.
Orlando has an odd feeling then, an idea that he could....
"But that's ridiculous," he says aloud. "Like Bloody Mary legends. As if saying 'Viggo Mortensen' will bring him about."
Unlike the first time, Viggo knows what to expect and he holds himself still as he feels the strange resonances that make up what little form he has, swirl thickly around him. "I'm sorry," is the first thing he says.
Orlando feels himself go chilly and gray even as his heart seems to explode into a racing beat. He scrambles backward, hands and ass scooting on the attic floor as he tries to cringe away from the -- from the -- Jesus Christ Almighty, it's true.
Viggo remains in place, looking down at himself curiously. He can't be seen in mirrors and even though Lucy once tried to photograph him, there was nothing but a blur, as if the chemicals had remained on the paper for too long. He knows that, according to her at least, he looks like "fog in the lamplight on a dark night when there's a little breeze off the river and you think you see someone only to realize you're looking at no one."
"I'm sorry," he says again, missing Lucy rather profoundly right now. "I can go back to my room and be there as long as you want me to stay away."
"How?" Orlando asks rather stupidly. "Why me?" There's so much more behind the question: Why choose me to seduce when surely you could find someone more suited?
And then he has to correct: More dead. Less alive. More on your plane of existence. Orlando realizes distantly that he's in a kind of shock.
"Because you're beautiful and lonely and something in you draws me," Viggo answers honestly. "Because I...I don't really know. There's just something about you."
That takes the wind out of Orlando's sails. "I'm not lonely," he says, though the argument sounds feeble to his own ears. "I like being here." But then he realizes that he likes being here because Viggo -- and God, doesn't it feel good to have a name to go with that face, that feeling? -- has made him feel welcome.
Orlando looks up at Viggo, at the mist that somehow makes him up. "I don't know what to say," he murmurs.
"Whatever you like," Viggo says quietly. "Had I ever felt you didn't want the dreams to take the form they did, I would have gone." He looks at Orlando, missing the ability to breathe; heaving a big sigh would feel very good right now. "You do understand why I pulled away last night?"
Orlando does, completely, though it's not much good. "I only wish you'd done it sooner," he says without thinking, and he looks up at Viggo's grayish form. "I think I'm in love with you, and we can't...I thought..."
You thought what? he wonders. That a dream lover was somehow more real than this? "We can't be together," he finally says, staring at the floor.
"Why not?" Viggo asks, staring at Orlando while the words "I think I'm in love with you" seem to echo around the attic.
"Well how the fuck can we?" Orlando spits, abruptly and unreasonably angry. He pushes up and stands. "Are you able to be here? Now?" Lunging forward, he proves his own point by swiping his hand through the immaterial mist that is Viggo.
That's always a startling feeling and for a moment Viggo loses cohesiveness. "No," he admits, "but we've been together every night."
Surprised, Orlando stares. "So that's it?" he asks. "Dreams? Is that...all?" Once the words are out he wishes he could recall them: they hurt. He knows it.
"Orlando, I can give you my undivided attention. I can talk with you during the day, or sleep when you're away, and we can have our nights together in your dreams." Viggo stretches out one misty hand. "I'll love you as much...more than I've loved anyone before. Is it really so different than what you would have with a live lover?" Even as he asks, he knows it is, and he tries not to think of a day when he has to watch Orlando leave the house to be with someone he can touch while he's awake.
"I'm sorry," Orlando says immediately. He stands, shaking his head and then looking up at Viggo. Viggo. The name just sounds good, even inside Orlando's head. He holds his hand out hesitantly. "I'm sorry," he says with a bit more weight. He doesn't know if he can do this but he damn sure wants to try.
"Lucy used to say touching me felt like dipping her hand into the North Sea in winter," Viggo said, holding out his hand.
"I don't care." Orlando pushes his hand out insistently and feels the frigid damp envelope it. He barely restrains a curse. "Viggo," he breathes, shivering, "there's got to be a way to get past this."
"There isn't, I don't think." Viggo said. "I don't know. It's rather isolated out here; I've never met another...anyone else like me."
Orlando sighs, dropping his hand. He wants there to be some romantic resolution, but this is the real world. There isn't one. "It's just the dreams, then?"
"Just the dreams?" Viggo says, looking at Orlando. "The last time I spent any time in dreams was before your Aunt Lucy was married. We used to picnic together and she'd tell me all her secrets." He smiles at Orlando. "It was all very innocent--I've never been one for women--but I could feel things...water and grass and her hand and the picnic basket." he sighs. "And that was what, 40, 50 years ago?
"They may be 'just' dreams to you Orlando, but the last two weeks have meant more to me than anything that happened after my death."
Orlando has no response for that. He feels alone now, more so than he did before, as though he'd cultivated something that died before it could bear fruit.
"I'm sorry," he sighs, shaking his head and stepping back. "I need..." More than that. He raises his hands, unable to look at Viggo. "I'm sorry."
"So am I," Viggo says. "I'd give you more if I could." As he lets himself dissipate, he bows a little. "Thank you for allowing me to touch you."
Orlando reaches out, but it's too late. He realizes abruptly, also too late, that it's colder with Viggo gone. Sighing, chest aching, he stares at the papers he's unearthed for a moment, then leaves them untouched to head back down to the bedroom. He's going to go back to sleep, but now it's just to forget himself for a little while.
-tbc-