Fic: Directions
Done for the "Reflections: Fifty Days of Sean" at sons_of_gondor
In honor of Sean’s five decades, five cinquains with a fic interspersed.
author: undonne
title: Directions
rating: NC-17’ish, mostly for language
pairing: VigBean forever
disclaimer: has absolutely nothing to do with the actors in real life or anything else except my hopeful imagination
East (Aragorn)
Flying.
Afraid, alone,
to dawn. To what? Too old
to look into the sun, to rise
again.
Afraid of flying. Wasn’t that the title of a stupid novel by that American woman, she of the zipless fuck? Sean grinned in spite of himself and signalled the pretty stewardess. Another vodka and tonic. Heaven knows he’d had his share, of liquor and of fucking. He could have the stewardess. Flight attendant, he corrected himself. Almost everyone was asleep. Take his mind off the fact that the plane could plummet into the dark ocean before… Before what? He sighed and took out the fat book Jackson’s people had sent his agent. He began to read where he’d stuck his boarding pass. “Suddenly Frodo noticed that a strange-looking weather-beaten man, sitting in the shadows, was also listening intently to the hobbit-talk.” Hobbits and mysterious stangers. Bloody hell, what had he got himself into? Signalling the stewardess for another vodka and tonic, he read on, forgetting for a while that he was poised precariously in the sky, heading toward a rising sun.
~~~~~
South (Boromir)
Burning.
His eyes, his hair
his skin all licked with fire,
as if a small sun lived inside,
white hot.
They had become friends, two actors about the same age. They had bonded, two humans among a litter of hobbits, elves, and other assorted creatures. He found Sean restful and uncomplicated - a father like himself, an adult not given to the highs and lows and intrigues that swirled through the continuing soap opera that was the on-set-and-off lives of the hobbit-tweens. They had taken to having drinks and dinner at the Parrot or sitting on his porch smoking and having a glass of wine after their long days. They talked of the actor’s life, of their dreams of the theatre, of their failed marriages and their dogged attempts not to fail as fathers in spite of their dedication to their craft and its demands.
Then there was the day he watched the filming of the scene in which Boromir dragged himself back from the brink of damnation, had tried to defend Merry and Pippin against a horde of orc. Viggo watched as Boromir… Sean… charged toward them. The sun was behind him and turned his hair into a halo of gold. His eyes were alight with love and desperation. Everything about Sean that Viggo had suspected lurked below the cool surface burst into fire in that moment. And in that moment, he fell in love. He gasped with the force and suddenness of it and turned away from everyone until he could get his face under control. Control. He needed every ounce of it the next day when they filmed the death scene. Lying on top of Sean, looking into those leaf-green eyes blazing with Boromir’s desire to throw his spirit into the future of Gondor, hearing that voice pledge loyalty to him… to Aragorn.… Control. He managed, although he was sick and shuddering with the weight of it by the time they finished the scene. Sean was married. He was definitely not interested in men. In any man. He was sure of it. He could not bear to let their friendship go, so control became his watchword. If he woke, burning with desire, night after night, Sean would never know it.
~~~~~
West (Viggo)
Raining.
West End sidewalk
treacherous under foot.
Falling. He’d slipped and never stopped
falling.
He’d told Viggo to take a taxi to the West End, that he’d leave him a ticket at the box office, that they’d go out after… Katie had come to do his make-up just as Viggo called, out of the blue. He’d just flown in from somewhere, could he come to the performance tonight? Sean felt a confusion of joy, excitement and a twinge of apprehension. Vig was going to see his Macbeth. They’d lost track of each other in the last few months. A few hurried phone calls, a card on his birthday. He had no idea that Viggo was going to be in England. Macbeth was one of those things they had talked about on the back porch in Wellington, including one memorable night when Ian joined them, got roaring drunk and enacted most of what he called “the good bits” from his capacious memory. Sean recalled a particularly memorable moment when Sir Ian leapt onto a rickety redwood bench, a glass of expensive pinot sloshing precariously in one hand, to declaim, “Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires.”
During the performance, he tried not to think about Sir Ian during that scene. A smile would have been inappropriate. He tried not to think about Vig watching him, about how much his opinion mattered. Waiting in his dressing room afterward, though, he twitched with anticipation, pacing the small space. What had he thought? What was he doing in London?
A knock on the door. Sean stopped his pacing and flung it open. A grinning Viggo stood there, holding out a bottle of…. he held it up so Sean could read the label… very expensive pinot. “Stars, hide your fires!” Viggo declaimed, in a fairly creditable imitation of Sir Ian’s baritone. “You were brilliant, by the way. He’d be proud.” A bear hug, a flood of talk and the bottle of pinot later, they were on the sidewalk, heading toward dinner at Sean's favorite pub just around the corner from the theatre.
It was bloody cold and raining to boot. As they walked, he turned to face Viggo, gesturing rather wildly as he described a bit of action he had imported from Boromir’s sword training into Macbeth’s fight scene. Suddenly, he lost his footing on the slick cobbles of the street. Viggo stepped forward and caught him in a tight embrace, saving him from falling. In that moment, everything changed. Feeling Viggo’s arms around him, he realized what he had been ignoring for months. He had been falling for a long time. He was still falling, away from what he thought he knew about himself, away from his old life, into the unknown. Viggo still held him. “You ok?” “Sure,” he replied, gently disentangling himself from Viggo’s grasp. But he was still falling.
~~~~~
North (Sean)
Heading
north a compass
is deceptive, mistakes
the pull of earth for the heart’s star --
true north.
“And did ya hear about Sean?” Dom giggled. Clearly the hobbit-kind had not abandoned their custom of communal drinking games whenever they fetched up in the same city.
“What about Sean?” Viggo said into his cell, almost reluctant. Another film? Another girlfriend? Another marriage? Over the years, he had kept track at an increasing distance. Sean was hurt at first, hadn’t seemed to understand why he withdrew. How could he know that the sight of him, the smell of him, the friendly hug, the talk of jobs and girlfriends simply became more than Viggo could bear? Losing a friend wasn’t so hard, after all, if friendship wasn’t enough.
“Almost got eaten by a fucking polar bear last week,” Dom replied, with the delighted schadenfreude of the young.
Viggo held the phone out in front of him to check the signal in the dark restaurant. He put it back to his ear. “Dom, did you say Sean was eating polar bear?” He kept his voice in the reasonable tone one used with hobbits and lunatics. He was in Cadiz, trying to have a quiet dinner, and the cellphone connection wasn’t the best.
“No,” shouted Dom, “eaten BY a polar bear.” “A fucking HUGE polar bear!” he added with glee.
Then Viggo remembered where Sean was at the moment. Wasn’t he filming in Russia? Or Norway? Or some other remote place north of everywhere? His heart lurched.
“Is Astin there?” Viggo asked levelly. “Put him on.”
“S’not here. Billy’s here…”
Viggo rubbed his forehead. He was getting a headache.
“… 'Lij is here…”
“Is he sober?”
Dom ignored this and went on, “And guess who else!!”
Viggo sighed. “Who?”
“Gandalf!”
Viggo sat up straighter. “Ian’s there? Put him on.” Thank God.
“My dear boy!” boomed the familiar voice. “How are you? Where are you?”
“I’m in Spain. What’s this about Sean?”
“Oh my, he had quite a close call. Or rather two. I talked to him not two weeks ago and he told me that he almost fell into a crevasse. He will try to do his own stunt work. Then I find out from the boys just tonight about the polar bear. Apparently they are hanging about the filming. They had guards, but what can one do in such a wild region? They were out filming on the middle of the ice and one charged.”
“Where is he?”
"The bear?"
"Sean," said Viggo, barely keeping his temper in check.
“Oh, on some Russian ship in the middle of the Arctic, apparently. Haven’t you talked to him?” Sir Ian’s tone was deliberately casual. Viggo could just picture those eyebrows climbing. “Well, he’s fine, dear boy, so all is well. We didn’t mean to worry you…”
Viggo heard Billy’s voice from the background, “But you said to call him. You said…”
Suddenly there was the sound of muffled yelps, and the connection was cut. The cunning old meddler. He had known all along. And he knew just what Viggo would do. He searched his phone for the number of Sean’s publicist. He would find out exactly where in the god-forsaken, bear-infested regions Sean was filming. He was tired of discretion, tired of friendship, tired of control. Most of all, he was tired of safety. He was heading north.
~~~~~
Center
Still point.
The compass rose
lies waiting. All journeys
tethered to the center the heart
calls home.
Sean shifted from one foot to the other, huddled in his parka, trying to stay warm. He squinted into the blinding white light. He had walked a good way apart from the crew. They didn’t need him for the next two scenes, and he wanted to think. He came north not just to make a film he believed in, but to think. A spiritual pilgrimage of sorts. He had politely declined to be accompanied by the polar bear guards. Lightning, or bears, weren’t likely to strike twice so soon.
The idea of cold and silence and purity had called him north. He wanted to get away from everything and everyone in his life, the ex-wives, the girlfriends (plural), even the children. The projects and phone calls and interviews. And the clubs and the drinking and the lonely house. He had made a hash of it all, hadn’t he? He could never have Viggo. He had known that from the beginning. Viggo wasn’t interested in men, he was sure of it. Neither was he, for that matter. Just one man. So he had done his best to be content with friendship and enjoy his life as best he could. But Viggo had gotten more and more distant, had quit returning his calls, had made excuses not to see him even when they were in the same city. His life now seemed as barren and cold as the ground on which he stood.
He saw a bundled figure trudging toward him through the snow. He sighed. Were they ready for him already? He headed toward the figure, trying to save him or her the trouble of coming all the way out to him. The figure threw back the hood of its parka. Sean saw long, straggly hair. Something about the long stride, even in the snow… He shielded his eyes with his hands and squinted. Then he stopped. It couldn’t be. What in hell would he be doing here? Yet he lifted a hand in a tentative wave. The figure waved wildly back. Sean couldn’t move. When Viggo stood in front of him, he was laughing and breathing hard.
“Couldn’t have signed up for a movie in the god-damned tropics, could you?” Viggo grinned.
“What in heaven’s name are you doing here?” Sean’s heart lifted in spite of itself. Viggo. Here.
Viggo’s smile faded and he looked at Sean for a long moment before he spoke. “Funny you should put it that way. I’m here on a pilgrimage, I guess you could say. Trying to find true north.”
Cryptic bastard, thought Sean.
Viggo sighed and opened his arms wide. “Sean, I love you. I have for years. I had to say it. If you don’t….”
Sean moved suddenly into those arms, still flung out like a crucifix, willing to suffer. Viggo's voice stopped as Sean kissed him.
The arms closed around Sean, and he stopped falling. No more need for journeys, or pilgrimages either. He had found the center, his center. He was home.
In honor of Sean’s five decades, five cinquains with a fic interspersed.
author: undonne
title: Directions
rating: NC-17’ish, mostly for language
pairing: VigBean forever
disclaimer: has absolutely nothing to do with the actors in real life or anything else except my hopeful imagination
East (Aragorn)
Flying.
Afraid, alone,
to dawn. To what? Too old
to look into the sun, to rise
again.
Afraid of flying. Wasn’t that the title of a stupid novel by that American woman, she of the zipless fuck? Sean grinned in spite of himself and signalled the pretty stewardess. Another vodka and tonic. Heaven knows he’d had his share, of liquor and of fucking. He could have the stewardess. Flight attendant, he corrected himself. Almost everyone was asleep. Take his mind off the fact that the plane could plummet into the dark ocean before… Before what? He sighed and took out the fat book Jackson’s people had sent his agent. He began to read where he’d stuck his boarding pass. “Suddenly Frodo noticed that a strange-looking weather-beaten man, sitting in the shadows, was also listening intently to the hobbit-talk.” Hobbits and mysterious stangers. Bloody hell, what had he got himself into? Signalling the stewardess for another vodka and tonic, he read on, forgetting for a while that he was poised precariously in the sky, heading toward a rising sun.
~~~~~
South (Boromir)
Burning.
His eyes, his hair
his skin all licked with fire,
as if a small sun lived inside,
white hot.
They had become friends, two actors about the same age. They had bonded, two humans among a litter of hobbits, elves, and other assorted creatures. He found Sean restful and uncomplicated - a father like himself, an adult not given to the highs and lows and intrigues that swirled through the continuing soap opera that was the on-set-and-off lives of the hobbit-tweens. They had taken to having drinks and dinner at the Parrot or sitting on his porch smoking and having a glass of wine after their long days. They talked of the actor’s life, of their dreams of the theatre, of their failed marriages and their dogged attempts not to fail as fathers in spite of their dedication to their craft and its demands.
Then there was the day he watched the filming of the scene in which Boromir dragged himself back from the brink of damnation, had tried to defend Merry and Pippin against a horde of orc. Viggo watched as Boromir… Sean… charged toward them. The sun was behind him and turned his hair into a halo of gold. His eyes were alight with love and desperation. Everything about Sean that Viggo had suspected lurked below the cool surface burst into fire in that moment. And in that moment, he fell in love. He gasped with the force and suddenness of it and turned away from everyone until he could get his face under control. Control. He needed every ounce of it the next day when they filmed the death scene. Lying on top of Sean, looking into those leaf-green eyes blazing with Boromir’s desire to throw his spirit into the future of Gondor, hearing that voice pledge loyalty to him… to Aragorn.… Control. He managed, although he was sick and shuddering with the weight of it by the time they finished the scene. Sean was married. He was definitely not interested in men. In any man. He was sure of it. He could not bear to let their friendship go, so control became his watchword. If he woke, burning with desire, night after night, Sean would never know it.
~~~~~
West (Viggo)
Raining.
West End sidewalk
treacherous under foot.
Falling. He’d slipped and never stopped
falling.
He’d told Viggo to take a taxi to the West End, that he’d leave him a ticket at the box office, that they’d go out after… Katie had come to do his make-up just as Viggo called, out of the blue. He’d just flown in from somewhere, could he come to the performance tonight? Sean felt a confusion of joy, excitement and a twinge of apprehension. Vig was going to see his Macbeth. They’d lost track of each other in the last few months. A few hurried phone calls, a card on his birthday. He had no idea that Viggo was going to be in England. Macbeth was one of those things they had talked about on the back porch in Wellington, including one memorable night when Ian joined them, got roaring drunk and enacted most of what he called “the good bits” from his capacious memory. Sean recalled a particularly memorable moment when Sir Ian leapt onto a rickety redwood bench, a glass of expensive pinot sloshing precariously in one hand, to declaim, “Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires.”
During the performance, he tried not to think about Sir Ian during that scene. A smile would have been inappropriate. He tried not to think about Vig watching him, about how much his opinion mattered. Waiting in his dressing room afterward, though, he twitched with anticipation, pacing the small space. What had he thought? What was he doing in London?
A knock on the door. Sean stopped his pacing and flung it open. A grinning Viggo stood there, holding out a bottle of…. he held it up so Sean could read the label… very expensive pinot. “Stars, hide your fires!” Viggo declaimed, in a fairly creditable imitation of Sir Ian’s baritone. “You were brilliant, by the way. He’d be proud.” A bear hug, a flood of talk and the bottle of pinot later, they were on the sidewalk, heading toward dinner at Sean's favorite pub just around the corner from the theatre.
It was bloody cold and raining to boot. As they walked, he turned to face Viggo, gesturing rather wildly as he described a bit of action he had imported from Boromir’s sword training into Macbeth’s fight scene. Suddenly, he lost his footing on the slick cobbles of the street. Viggo stepped forward and caught him in a tight embrace, saving him from falling. In that moment, everything changed. Feeling Viggo’s arms around him, he realized what he had been ignoring for months. He had been falling for a long time. He was still falling, away from what he thought he knew about himself, away from his old life, into the unknown. Viggo still held him. “You ok?” “Sure,” he replied, gently disentangling himself from Viggo’s grasp. But he was still falling.
~~~~~
North (Sean)
Heading
north a compass
is deceptive, mistakes
the pull of earth for the heart’s star --
true north.
“And did ya hear about Sean?” Dom giggled. Clearly the hobbit-kind had not abandoned their custom of communal drinking games whenever they fetched up in the same city.
“What about Sean?” Viggo said into his cell, almost reluctant. Another film? Another girlfriend? Another marriage? Over the years, he had kept track at an increasing distance. Sean was hurt at first, hadn’t seemed to understand why he withdrew. How could he know that the sight of him, the smell of him, the friendly hug, the talk of jobs and girlfriends simply became more than Viggo could bear? Losing a friend wasn’t so hard, after all, if friendship wasn’t enough.
“Almost got eaten by a fucking polar bear last week,” Dom replied, with the delighted schadenfreude of the young.
Viggo held the phone out in front of him to check the signal in the dark restaurant. He put it back to his ear. “Dom, did you say Sean was eating polar bear?” He kept his voice in the reasonable tone one used with hobbits and lunatics. He was in Cadiz, trying to have a quiet dinner, and the cellphone connection wasn’t the best.
“No,” shouted Dom, “eaten BY a polar bear.” “A fucking HUGE polar bear!” he added with glee.
Then Viggo remembered where Sean was at the moment. Wasn’t he filming in Russia? Or Norway? Or some other remote place north of everywhere? His heart lurched.
“Is Astin there?” Viggo asked levelly. “Put him on.”
“S’not here. Billy’s here…”
Viggo rubbed his forehead. He was getting a headache.
“… 'Lij is here…”
“Is he sober?”
Dom ignored this and went on, “And guess who else!!”
Viggo sighed. “Who?”
“Gandalf!”
Viggo sat up straighter. “Ian’s there? Put him on.” Thank God.
“My dear boy!” boomed the familiar voice. “How are you? Where are you?”
“I’m in Spain. What’s this about Sean?”
“Oh my, he had quite a close call. Or rather two. I talked to him not two weeks ago and he told me that he almost fell into a crevasse. He will try to do his own stunt work. Then I find out from the boys just tonight about the polar bear. Apparently they are hanging about the filming. They had guards, but what can one do in such a wild region? They were out filming on the middle of the ice and one charged.”
“Where is he?”
"The bear?"
"Sean," said Viggo, barely keeping his temper in check.
“Oh, on some Russian ship in the middle of the Arctic, apparently. Haven’t you talked to him?” Sir Ian’s tone was deliberately casual. Viggo could just picture those eyebrows climbing. “Well, he’s fine, dear boy, so all is well. We didn’t mean to worry you…”
Viggo heard Billy’s voice from the background, “But you said to call him. You said…”
Suddenly there was the sound of muffled yelps, and the connection was cut. The cunning old meddler. He had known all along. And he knew just what Viggo would do. He searched his phone for the number of Sean’s publicist. He would find out exactly where in the god-forsaken, bear-infested regions Sean was filming. He was tired of discretion, tired of friendship, tired of control. Most of all, he was tired of safety. He was heading north.
~~~~~
Center
Still point.
The compass rose
lies waiting. All journeys
tethered to the center the heart
calls home.
Sean shifted from one foot to the other, huddled in his parka, trying to stay warm. He squinted into the blinding white light. He had walked a good way apart from the crew. They didn’t need him for the next two scenes, and he wanted to think. He came north not just to make a film he believed in, but to think. A spiritual pilgrimage of sorts. He had politely declined to be accompanied by the polar bear guards. Lightning, or bears, weren’t likely to strike twice so soon.
The idea of cold and silence and purity had called him north. He wanted to get away from everything and everyone in his life, the ex-wives, the girlfriends (plural), even the children. The projects and phone calls and interviews. And the clubs and the drinking and the lonely house. He had made a hash of it all, hadn’t he? He could never have Viggo. He had known that from the beginning. Viggo wasn’t interested in men, he was sure of it. Neither was he, for that matter. Just one man. So he had done his best to be content with friendship and enjoy his life as best he could. But Viggo had gotten more and more distant, had quit returning his calls, had made excuses not to see him even when they were in the same city. His life now seemed as barren and cold as the ground on which he stood.
He saw a bundled figure trudging toward him through the snow. He sighed. Were they ready for him already? He headed toward the figure, trying to save him or her the trouble of coming all the way out to him. The figure threw back the hood of its parka. Sean saw long, straggly hair. Something about the long stride, even in the snow… He shielded his eyes with his hands and squinted. Then he stopped. It couldn’t be. What in hell would he be doing here? Yet he lifted a hand in a tentative wave. The figure waved wildly back. Sean couldn’t move. When Viggo stood in front of him, he was laughing and breathing hard.
“Couldn’t have signed up for a movie in the god-damned tropics, could you?” Viggo grinned.
“What in heaven’s name are you doing here?” Sean’s heart lifted in spite of itself. Viggo. Here.
Viggo’s smile faded and he looked at Sean for a long moment before he spoke. “Funny you should put it that way. I’m here on a pilgrimage, I guess you could say. Trying to find true north.”
Cryptic bastard, thought Sean.
Viggo sighed and opened his arms wide. “Sean, I love you. I have for years. I had to say it. If you don’t….”
Sean moved suddenly into those arms, still flung out like a crucifix, willing to suffer. Viggo's voice stopped as Sean kissed him.
The arms closed around Sean, and he stopped falling. No more need for journeys, or pilgrimages either. He had found the center, his center. He was home.