Trick or Treat - FIC: before the street begins for noalinnea (LotRPF, Vigbean)
Title: before the street begins
Author: evocates
Recipient: noalinnea
Fandom: LotRPF
Pairing: Sean Bean/Viggo Mortensen
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Not real, just a product of imagination!
Summary: AU. Sean and Viggo are students in a high school in Sheffield. Tomorrow is Viggo’s graduation day
Notes: Title cribbed from Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends. Beta’d by afra_schatz, who might have rescued this from the junk heap with her comments.
“I can’t convince you to stay, can I?”
The floor of the school roof presses hard on Sean’s shoulder as he reaches a hand out, looking at the sky through the gaps of his fingers. Beside him, tucked against his side, Viggo sighs quietly, a warm gust of air that caresses the skin of Sean’s neck. Almost sensual enough to make him shiver.
“No,” he says.
Not even for another year? The question hovers between them unspoken. They’re been through this round of questioning before, but every single time he looks at Viggo, he finds the same question on the tip of his tongue still.
Sean doesn’t say a word; he still has his pride, even though he knows that Viggo feels the shape of every unspoken letter against his tongue. Instead, he drops his hand, letting it curl around Viggo’s shoulder as he pulls him closer.
Tomorrow is the last day of high school for the seniors. None of them will be coming back to school after that - either they will be working amongst in the Sheffield factories, or they will be going to college in London or even Sheffield University. Some will be going to university overseas. Viggo is one of them: he will be leaving for New York, to pursue his degree in art in NYU, and though Sean knows this day will come from the moment he kissed Viggo at the back of the metal workshop and allowed Viggo’s fingers to leave multi-coloured paints all over his school uniform, a year had seemed so long to him.
And somehow, he thought then that it would be easy, really easy, to convince Viggo to stay. New York doesn’t have Sean; what other attraction will it have for Viggo?
“You can take a gap year,” he finds his own mouth moving, his voice speaking words that his head hasn’t agreed on. “Stay here, make some art. Put your stuff in the galleries, have some exhibitions. Your portfolio will look more impressive then, won’t it?”
Viggo shifts, pushing himself up and away from Sean. He looks down on him for a long moment before he leans over Sean, blocking his view of the sky, catching his gaze with storm-grey eyes.
“Begging doesn’t suit you, you know,” he says, quirking a lopsided smile. “You know why I can’t stay.”
Sean knows. They’ve had this conversation a million times: silently, while Viggo was trying desperately to study for his SATs; and later, much louder, after the examinations were over and there’s only a period of waiting to know whether Viggo will get into the university of his choice, whether Viggo will leave him in the end. Half a year they had together without worries before Viggo has to leave, and somehow time that he thought was just long enough for a fling has become far, far too short.
It must be a form of irony. Or karma. He kissed Viggo that time because he thought it’d be easier to be with a senior - if Viggo rejected him, there would only be less than six months of awkwardness before he disappeared from Sean’s sight and he won’t have to worry about him again. Things with blokes are supposed to be simple and easy - messy kisses; fumbles in their bedrooms, trying desperately to keep their voices down so their parents won’t suspect; kicking a football around once in a while and feeling shivers crawl up his spine when he tackles Viggo down to the ground and pins him there.
Well, things used to be so simple, but now they are far from easy, and haven’t been for a long while. Even now, Sean refuses to say the word; hides it under his tongue, because there is no longer a point. It’s not a magic word that cures all wounds; only a knife that spreads it wider, filthy enough to make it fester.
Almost involuntarily, Sean’s fingers splay over Viggo’s cheekbones, his thumbs moving up to trace the corner of his eyes. In the future, Viggo’s eyes will have changed, turned wiser and more knowing, the constant itching restlessness behind them gone. Sean wonders if he will ever be able to see how the colour of Viggo’s eyes would have changed then; wonders if, in ten or maybe fifteen years, Viggo will look himself in the mirror and trace the edge of his calm eyes and think about a boy he knew in high school who knew him when he was a restless, constantly moving thing.
His thoughts are getting maudlin.
“Shut me up then,” Sean says, barely remembering to insert the note of challenge into his voice. That’s what they’re both used to, and in this time when change’s footsteps resound at their door, Sean wants to hold onto what’s familiar with both hands.
Viggo’s lips curl up, the corner of his eyes turning him. He kisses Sean slowly, their mouths moulding together, fingers tapping down Sean’s jaw, making nonsensical patterns on his chin, his throat, ghosting over the buttons of his school uniform shirt. Sean arches up, his tongue sliding over Viggo’s teeth, their hips pressing together but they have both learned patience in the last few months; learned how to savour each moment, dragging it out as though it will be their last.
In New York, Viggo will learn to be an artist. His works will be exhibited in galleries where more than a few people will look at them, and he will go to galleries himself and see all the art he loves in their full glory instead of tiny little pictures in textbooks. In New York, Viggo will be free, no longer facing the strange looks that people shoot him because of how he dresses, how he talks. His accent will be considered normal there, and he will stand out because of his talent, not his strangeness. Eventually, he’ll become a celebrated artist, his works even respected and even revolutionary enough to create a whole new art movement.
In Sheffield, Sean will finish his last year of school and go to work in his father’s factory. His life is already planned out in front of him - a path well-worn and endless, and one he has never thought to walk away from. In a few years, he’ll get married; to Debra who lives two streets down, maybe. What he has with Viggo now will become like a dream, a youthful indiscretion that he will chuckle over a mug of beer in the pubs, bumping shoulders with mates he has known all of his life.
“You can follow me to New York,” Viggo murmurs against Sean’s mouth. “I’ve seen the way you draw. You have more than enough talent. We can study together. Have sex on the couch of our studio apartment.”
Sean laughs, unable to help the soft, bitter note that’s wound into every single note. “You know I’ve never liked a single Yank before you,” he says, but somehow his hands are clenching around Viggo’s shoulders, pulling him close enough to feel the thrumming of his heart against his own. “Besides, I’m not the arty sort like you.”
The warm wind brushes against Sean’s mouth as Viggo pulls away. Summer is coming. Sean watches, flat on his back on the school roof, as Viggo stands up and walks away, towards the fence that surrounds the roof. Fingers - paint-stained, charcoal-stained, such a sharp contrast to Sean’s own that have been roughened by handling welding equipment instead of paintbrushes - closes around one of the diamonds, and Viggo drops his head onto the rubber-covered metal.
Folding his legs, Sean stands up. Every step is heavy, but he places his hands on Viggo’s shoulder, pressing his body against his own, trying to memorise the shape of Viggo’s back against his own chest.
“Even if I go, you’ll get tired of me anyway,” he says. Sean laughs; a burbling sound that rises unexpectedly in his chest. “You’ll have to wait a year. Maybe you’ll find someone else before then; someone who understands you when you ramble about all those art theories and techniques of yours, the things that I’ve never fully understood. They’ll like footie too, and when you two have gotten sick of staring at your canvas, you’d kick a ball around. There’re proper parks in New York, aren’t they? You won’t have to play football on abandoned roads anymore.”
Viggo’s shoulders shake underneath his hands, his knuckles stark white against the dull green of the fence. Sean closes his eyes, dropping his head between shoulderblades, and exhales over the nape of Viggo’s neck. His hand drops over Viggo’s, curling over the same fence, but their fingers do not link.
“Even if I stay, you’ll eventually get so frustrated about me,” Viggo says, his voice rough and hoarse, tears hovering like clouds in the skies right before a heavy downpour. “You’ll have to support me, because I’ll be a starving artist, with too many qualifications and no real skills. I’ll start shouting at you when you ask me to get a real job, even though you’re just being practical. Eventually you’ll throw me out of the house, and I’ll end up living at the corner of the streets in a cardboard box.”
Sean lifts his head. His fingers brush Viggo’s jaw, turning him around before he crashes their mouths together. It’s pure desperation now, their bodies arching into each other, hands grabbing at hair and clothes and anything they can reach. Viggo’s heartbeat is loud in Sean’s ears - or maybe it’s his own - and he shoves the older boy against the fence. His nails catch at the waistband of Viggo’s uniform pants, before he shifts, sliding upwards. Viggo always leaves his shirt untucked, and Sean makes a sound, strangled in his throat, at the feel of hot, shivering skin against his hand.
There’s salt on his tongue from Viggo’s tears, salt at the back of his throat from what he’s holding back his own. A year ago, Sean will laugh at the thought that he’ll be taking part in a scene like this - it sounds too much like one of those soap operas his mother likes to watch. But it’s not a TV show, because if it’s fiction then Viggo will stay, or Sean will go.
But it’s only life, and Viggo will not stay, and Sean will not go.
“I won’t forget about you, you know,” he gasps out as Viggo pulls away slightly to struggle at the buttons of his shirt. “I won’t ever forget.”
It’s a promise he knows he might not be able to keep - who knows what the future brings? Maybe his true happiness lies with Debra, not Viggo. But the future is far away now, and Sean wants the present; wants only this moment.
His fingers catch Viggo’s, holding them still as he leans forward, pressing their foreheads together and catching Viggo’s eyes with his own. Storm-grey has changed into a pale blue, like the shy sky peeking out from beneath the clouds after the storm. Sean feels a deep, insistent ache in his heart; knife tips pressing in that his willpower is barely keeping from slicing through.
So he won’t be able to categorise all the possible colours of Viggo’s eyes after all.
You’ve changed me too much, Sean wants to say, but the lump in his throat is too heavy to get through, not even with the desperate rush of his blood. You’ve made me see the world differently, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go back to what I was before.
Viggo stares at him, tear tracks smeared on his cheeks. His fingers reach up, brushing the corner of Sean’s eyes and coming back wet. They smile at each other, shakily, before Viggo draws his arms around Sean’s neck, holding him so close that Sean imagines, for a moment, that Viggo is trying to crawl into his chest, to make his home in Sean’s heart.
(It’ll be silly if he tries to do that. He has accomplished that months ago.)
“I won’t forget you either,” Viggo says, and his shoulders shake - half in laughter, half in sobs, the same combination that has haunted their steps these few words as graduation inches nearer and nearer. Now their separation looms before them, no longer in abstract, but as real as a plane ticket, as new textbooks for the next school term.
They look at each other for another moment before Sean takes a step back. They laugh breathlessly, the back of their hands brushing over each other’s cheeks, wiping away the tears. He closes his eyes as Viggo brings his hand up to kiss the knuckles, one by one, and Sean’s fingers twitch in mid-air, caught between smacking Viggo at the back of the head like he usually does or to simply savour the moment.
“There’s something we still haven’t managed to do in the school,” Viggo says, and he lifts his eyes, looking at Sean from beneath heavy lashes. Like mercury his moods have always been, and Sean finds his breath hitching, the unspoken word heavier than usual on the tip of his tongue. This is why he is attracted to Viggo in the first place: the way a gentle smile can turn into a sharp grin - this very one, the same one that always heralds a new prank to pull on the teachers.
(Viggo’s excuse is always that he’s going to graduate, so there’s no use in holding back on the pranks; Sean always wonders what his excuse is for helping him, because he still has another year to go.)
“What is it?” Sean asks, and he’s surprised at the rasp that his voice has become.
“We should have sex here,” Viggo’s grin widens even further, making him look like the Cheshire Cat though his eyes are still dark and there’s tears in the corner of his eyes. “On the roof. We’ve never tried that, have we?”
Sean stares at him for a long moment, silent, his thumb pressing hard against the edge of Viggo’s mouth. He wants, suddenly, to sink his nail into the skin, to pull off that insincere curve of the lips so he knows what Viggo is truly thinking. He opens his mouth, then closes it. Shakes his head hard.
“It’ll be so easy,” he says, the words spilling out of him, slipping from his tongue like sand in an hourglass. “I don’t want to pretend this is easy, I mean I do but it’s not and I don’t-”
They have reached a crossroads, and from there they will take different paths. Parallel lines in two different continents, and never shall they meet again. There is a day left for them both - hours, if Sean is honest with himself - and that’s not enough.
“We can’t take the easy path anymore, can we,” Viggo says, his voice low and quiet. The smile has turned upside down, and Sean’s shoulders shake as they lean their foreheads against each other. Draws in each other exhales and stops there, tries to hold the air in their throats as if they can stop time like this. But it rushes out of their lungs anyway, and though Sean has never been good with metaphors, he understands this too.
He kisses Viggo again, rough and messy, their lips sliding against each other, spit smearing over the corners of their mouths. All rough edges without the vagueness of words to blunt them. Sean can’t grasp for words any longer, and there’s nothing fictional about this. He might read Shakespeare but he is no Ferdinand, no Romeo, capable of weaving beautiful words to woo. Not even Mercutio or Falstaff-his thoughts break away, shatter into pieces as Viggo’s tongue curls up against his palate, and Sean abandons them.
Slowly, reluctantly, their lips part, and they pant against each other. Sean’s fingers are forming little crescents on Viggo’s shoulder, marks that will disappear in minutes. Viggo tilts his head up, and there are shadows in his eyes that makes Sean’s breathing shake.
“Please,” Viggo begs, quietly. “Please, let’s just-”
Viggo’s hand is hot on the front of Sean’s pants, palming his crotch, and though there is protest on Sean’s tongue, he can only moan into a warm mouth. His hips jerk forward, hands trembling as he reaches for Viggo. He wants to talk; wants to release all the words that weigh heavy on his tongue. Their positions have changed - usually Sean opts for silence and actions, but now Viggo’s fingers are desperate, rough and urgent on his cock, rubbing hard. He’s making small little sounds at the back of his throat, his hips grinding against Sean’s. And Sean finds himself reaching forward, fingers scrabbling at Viggo’s belt, pulling at leather and metal, letting the buckle bite at his skin.
This isn’t a goodbye.
Goodbyes are supposed to be soft, sweet thing, or so the strange romance novels that Sean’s mother reads say. This is rough, urgent, Viggo wiggling between Sean and the fence as he tries to shove his slacks off his hips; Sean’s hand curving around his cock, the skin silky and slick with precome already; Viggo’s rough panting, his exhales wetting Sean’s lips even as his tongue swipes at his teeth.
Sean’s back is to the door of the rooftop, and anyone can come in. Maybe a girl, shyly blushing as she drags the senior she’s had a crush on for years to tell him that she loves him, the day before he graduates. Maybe even a teacher. But Sean has lost all ability to think about the world when Viggo’s fingers close around his cock and tugs. Even if someone comes in, then perhaps Sean will have an excuse to leave, something that will have him thrown out of the house, the school, the very city until he has no other choice than to follow Viggo over the sea.
If their lives are fictional, it will end with Sean hiding in the cargo section of Viggo’s ship, and Viggo will find him right when he’s cold, and brings him somewhere warm.
But stories don’t feel as real as this: the burn that starts from his groin and spreads outwards and upwards, until Sean’s neck feels hotter than a welding torch; the way Viggo’s hip bumps against his clumsily with every rock, every thrust, their feet sliding on the smooth concrete floor of the roof; the smell of Viggo’s hair, turpentine and sun, the strangest combination that Sean’s mind will never be able to conjure.
He gasps as he comes, his hand closing tight around Viggo’s cock, squeezing hard. And Sean takes in Viggo’s little moan and the sight of him throwing his head back; stores the memory deep within his heart for him to take out somewhere down the path it’s inevitable that he will walk, so he will feel warmth again, if not the burn.
They lean against each other like this. The fence bites into Sean’s hand and surely Viggo’s shoulders, but neither of them move. There’s wet stickiness on both of their hands, and Sean’s shoulders shake over the feel of his own slacks half-hanging down his hips, in deep danger of simply falling off.
Now Viggo’s eyes are dark blue, the colour of the seas right before a thunderstorm. There’s a metaphor in that too, but Sean prefers the salt of their come mixed with Viggo’s sweat on those callused and stained hands. He licks Viggo’s fingers, sliding his tongue over skin, feeling the whorls of his fingertips and wonders when that has become familiar; when Viggo’s fingerprints have been inked onto the tip of Sean’s tongue, an invisible tattoo.
Viggo’s breathing hitches.
There are words on his tongue, Sean knows - Viggo has always been better with words; has always relied on them more than Sean ever has. But Viggo only lowers his eyes, drawing Sean’s hand upwards and into his mouth, teeth scraping against the tips before he sucks on them, swiping the skin clean of come with every stroke of his tongue.
Tomorrow morning, Viggo will walk up to the stage to receive the piece of paper that concludes his school years and his life in England. Sean will be standing at the corner of the auditorium, too far away for Viggo’s eyes to be able to meet his. That’s alright, because what they have is entirely theirs, untainted by the judgment and knowledge of others. It’s entirely theirs, and it will remain theirs even when Viggo takes the plane to go to New York in a couple of weeks. A secret that they keep deep in their hearts, buried so deep inside that even the rot of maturity will never reach it.
The ceremony is less than sixteen hours away. Viggo and Sean will have even less, because Viggo will have to go home early today so he won’t have eyebags for the graduation photograph tomorrow. This moment lasts only a few seconds, and even the taste of salt will eventually fade from Sean’s tongue.
“I love you,” Sean blurts out. He laughs at himself, at his own appalling timing, burying his face into Viggo’s shoulder. “Don’t go,” he whispers, because he has to try.
Soft gusts of air ghosts over his neck. Viggo makes a sound, almost like a sob.
“Yeah,” he says, his hand burying into Sean’s hair, cupping his neck. His body is warm and solid, bracketed by Sean’s own arms. “I won’t go. I love you, and I won’t go.”
Viggo is a cruel bastard. But so is Sean, for asking.
“I’ll stay here,” Viggo says, his voice thick with tears. “I’ll stay here with you for the next few hours.”
End
When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults. -Brian Aldiss
Author: evocates
Recipient: noalinnea
Fandom: LotRPF
Pairing: Sean Bean/Viggo Mortensen
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Not real, just a product of imagination!
Summary: AU. Sean and Viggo are students in a high school in Sheffield. Tomorrow is Viggo’s graduation day
Notes: Title cribbed from Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends. Beta’d by afra_schatz, who might have rescued this from the junk heap with her comments.
“I can’t convince you to stay, can I?”
The floor of the school roof presses hard on Sean’s shoulder as he reaches a hand out, looking at the sky through the gaps of his fingers. Beside him, tucked against his side, Viggo sighs quietly, a warm gust of air that caresses the skin of Sean’s neck. Almost sensual enough to make him shiver.
“No,” he says.
Not even for another year? The question hovers between them unspoken. They’re been through this round of questioning before, but every single time he looks at Viggo, he finds the same question on the tip of his tongue still.
Sean doesn’t say a word; he still has his pride, even though he knows that Viggo feels the shape of every unspoken letter against his tongue. Instead, he drops his hand, letting it curl around Viggo’s shoulder as he pulls him closer.
Tomorrow is the last day of high school for the seniors. None of them will be coming back to school after that - either they will be working amongst in the Sheffield factories, or they will be going to college in London or even Sheffield University. Some will be going to university overseas. Viggo is one of them: he will be leaving for New York, to pursue his degree in art in NYU, and though Sean knows this day will come from the moment he kissed Viggo at the back of the metal workshop and allowed Viggo’s fingers to leave multi-coloured paints all over his school uniform, a year had seemed so long to him.
And somehow, he thought then that it would be easy, really easy, to convince Viggo to stay. New York doesn’t have Sean; what other attraction will it have for Viggo?
“You can take a gap year,” he finds his own mouth moving, his voice speaking words that his head hasn’t agreed on. “Stay here, make some art. Put your stuff in the galleries, have some exhibitions. Your portfolio will look more impressive then, won’t it?”
Viggo shifts, pushing himself up and away from Sean. He looks down on him for a long moment before he leans over Sean, blocking his view of the sky, catching his gaze with storm-grey eyes.
“Begging doesn’t suit you, you know,” he says, quirking a lopsided smile. “You know why I can’t stay.”
Sean knows. They’ve had this conversation a million times: silently, while Viggo was trying desperately to study for his SATs; and later, much louder, after the examinations were over and there’s only a period of waiting to know whether Viggo will get into the university of his choice, whether Viggo will leave him in the end. Half a year they had together without worries before Viggo has to leave, and somehow time that he thought was just long enough for a fling has become far, far too short.
It must be a form of irony. Or karma. He kissed Viggo that time because he thought it’d be easier to be with a senior - if Viggo rejected him, there would only be less than six months of awkwardness before he disappeared from Sean’s sight and he won’t have to worry about him again. Things with blokes are supposed to be simple and easy - messy kisses; fumbles in their bedrooms, trying desperately to keep their voices down so their parents won’t suspect; kicking a football around once in a while and feeling shivers crawl up his spine when he tackles Viggo down to the ground and pins him there.
Well, things used to be so simple, but now they are far from easy, and haven’t been for a long while. Even now, Sean refuses to say the word; hides it under his tongue, because there is no longer a point. It’s not a magic word that cures all wounds; only a knife that spreads it wider, filthy enough to make it fester.
Almost involuntarily, Sean’s fingers splay over Viggo’s cheekbones, his thumbs moving up to trace the corner of his eyes. In the future, Viggo’s eyes will have changed, turned wiser and more knowing, the constant itching restlessness behind them gone. Sean wonders if he will ever be able to see how the colour of Viggo’s eyes would have changed then; wonders if, in ten or maybe fifteen years, Viggo will look himself in the mirror and trace the edge of his calm eyes and think about a boy he knew in high school who knew him when he was a restless, constantly moving thing.
His thoughts are getting maudlin.
“Shut me up then,” Sean says, barely remembering to insert the note of challenge into his voice. That’s what they’re both used to, and in this time when change’s footsteps resound at their door, Sean wants to hold onto what’s familiar with both hands.
Viggo’s lips curl up, the corner of his eyes turning him. He kisses Sean slowly, their mouths moulding together, fingers tapping down Sean’s jaw, making nonsensical patterns on his chin, his throat, ghosting over the buttons of his school uniform shirt. Sean arches up, his tongue sliding over Viggo’s teeth, their hips pressing together but they have both learned patience in the last few months; learned how to savour each moment, dragging it out as though it will be their last.
In New York, Viggo will learn to be an artist. His works will be exhibited in galleries where more than a few people will look at them, and he will go to galleries himself and see all the art he loves in their full glory instead of tiny little pictures in textbooks. In New York, Viggo will be free, no longer facing the strange looks that people shoot him because of how he dresses, how he talks. His accent will be considered normal there, and he will stand out because of his talent, not his strangeness. Eventually, he’ll become a celebrated artist, his works even respected and even revolutionary enough to create a whole new art movement.
In Sheffield, Sean will finish his last year of school and go to work in his father’s factory. His life is already planned out in front of him - a path well-worn and endless, and one he has never thought to walk away from. In a few years, he’ll get married; to Debra who lives two streets down, maybe. What he has with Viggo now will become like a dream, a youthful indiscretion that he will chuckle over a mug of beer in the pubs, bumping shoulders with mates he has known all of his life.
“You can follow me to New York,” Viggo murmurs against Sean’s mouth. “I’ve seen the way you draw. You have more than enough talent. We can study together. Have sex on the couch of our studio apartment.”
Sean laughs, unable to help the soft, bitter note that’s wound into every single note. “You know I’ve never liked a single Yank before you,” he says, but somehow his hands are clenching around Viggo’s shoulders, pulling him close enough to feel the thrumming of his heart against his own. “Besides, I’m not the arty sort like you.”
The warm wind brushes against Sean’s mouth as Viggo pulls away. Summer is coming. Sean watches, flat on his back on the school roof, as Viggo stands up and walks away, towards the fence that surrounds the roof. Fingers - paint-stained, charcoal-stained, such a sharp contrast to Sean’s own that have been roughened by handling welding equipment instead of paintbrushes - closes around one of the diamonds, and Viggo drops his head onto the rubber-covered metal.
Folding his legs, Sean stands up. Every step is heavy, but he places his hands on Viggo’s shoulder, pressing his body against his own, trying to memorise the shape of Viggo’s back against his own chest.
“Even if I go, you’ll get tired of me anyway,” he says. Sean laughs; a burbling sound that rises unexpectedly in his chest. “You’ll have to wait a year. Maybe you’ll find someone else before then; someone who understands you when you ramble about all those art theories and techniques of yours, the things that I’ve never fully understood. They’ll like footie too, and when you two have gotten sick of staring at your canvas, you’d kick a ball around. There’re proper parks in New York, aren’t they? You won’t have to play football on abandoned roads anymore.”
Viggo’s shoulders shake underneath his hands, his knuckles stark white against the dull green of the fence. Sean closes his eyes, dropping his head between shoulderblades, and exhales over the nape of Viggo’s neck. His hand drops over Viggo’s, curling over the same fence, but their fingers do not link.
“Even if I stay, you’ll eventually get so frustrated about me,” Viggo says, his voice rough and hoarse, tears hovering like clouds in the skies right before a heavy downpour. “You’ll have to support me, because I’ll be a starving artist, with too many qualifications and no real skills. I’ll start shouting at you when you ask me to get a real job, even though you’re just being practical. Eventually you’ll throw me out of the house, and I’ll end up living at the corner of the streets in a cardboard box.”
Sean lifts his head. His fingers brush Viggo’s jaw, turning him around before he crashes their mouths together. It’s pure desperation now, their bodies arching into each other, hands grabbing at hair and clothes and anything they can reach. Viggo’s heartbeat is loud in Sean’s ears - or maybe it’s his own - and he shoves the older boy against the fence. His nails catch at the waistband of Viggo’s uniform pants, before he shifts, sliding upwards. Viggo always leaves his shirt untucked, and Sean makes a sound, strangled in his throat, at the feel of hot, shivering skin against his hand.
There’s salt on his tongue from Viggo’s tears, salt at the back of his throat from what he’s holding back his own. A year ago, Sean will laugh at the thought that he’ll be taking part in a scene like this - it sounds too much like one of those soap operas his mother likes to watch. But it’s not a TV show, because if it’s fiction then Viggo will stay, or Sean will go.
But it’s only life, and Viggo will not stay, and Sean will not go.
“I won’t forget about you, you know,” he gasps out as Viggo pulls away slightly to struggle at the buttons of his shirt. “I won’t ever forget.”
It’s a promise he knows he might not be able to keep - who knows what the future brings? Maybe his true happiness lies with Debra, not Viggo. But the future is far away now, and Sean wants the present; wants only this moment.
His fingers catch Viggo’s, holding them still as he leans forward, pressing their foreheads together and catching Viggo’s eyes with his own. Storm-grey has changed into a pale blue, like the shy sky peeking out from beneath the clouds after the storm. Sean feels a deep, insistent ache in his heart; knife tips pressing in that his willpower is barely keeping from slicing through.
So he won’t be able to categorise all the possible colours of Viggo’s eyes after all.
You’ve changed me too much, Sean wants to say, but the lump in his throat is too heavy to get through, not even with the desperate rush of his blood. You’ve made me see the world differently, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go back to what I was before.
Viggo stares at him, tear tracks smeared on his cheeks. His fingers reach up, brushing the corner of Sean’s eyes and coming back wet. They smile at each other, shakily, before Viggo draws his arms around Sean’s neck, holding him so close that Sean imagines, for a moment, that Viggo is trying to crawl into his chest, to make his home in Sean’s heart.
(It’ll be silly if he tries to do that. He has accomplished that months ago.)
“I won’t forget you either,” Viggo says, and his shoulders shake - half in laughter, half in sobs, the same combination that has haunted their steps these few words as graduation inches nearer and nearer. Now their separation looms before them, no longer in abstract, but as real as a plane ticket, as new textbooks for the next school term.
They look at each other for another moment before Sean takes a step back. They laugh breathlessly, the back of their hands brushing over each other’s cheeks, wiping away the tears. He closes his eyes as Viggo brings his hand up to kiss the knuckles, one by one, and Sean’s fingers twitch in mid-air, caught between smacking Viggo at the back of the head like he usually does or to simply savour the moment.
“There’s something we still haven’t managed to do in the school,” Viggo says, and he lifts his eyes, looking at Sean from beneath heavy lashes. Like mercury his moods have always been, and Sean finds his breath hitching, the unspoken word heavier than usual on the tip of his tongue. This is why he is attracted to Viggo in the first place: the way a gentle smile can turn into a sharp grin - this very one, the same one that always heralds a new prank to pull on the teachers.
(Viggo’s excuse is always that he’s going to graduate, so there’s no use in holding back on the pranks; Sean always wonders what his excuse is for helping him, because he still has another year to go.)
“What is it?” Sean asks, and he’s surprised at the rasp that his voice has become.
“We should have sex here,” Viggo’s grin widens even further, making him look like the Cheshire Cat though his eyes are still dark and there’s tears in the corner of his eyes. “On the roof. We’ve never tried that, have we?”
Sean stares at him for a long moment, silent, his thumb pressing hard against the edge of Viggo’s mouth. He wants, suddenly, to sink his nail into the skin, to pull off that insincere curve of the lips so he knows what Viggo is truly thinking. He opens his mouth, then closes it. Shakes his head hard.
“It’ll be so easy,” he says, the words spilling out of him, slipping from his tongue like sand in an hourglass. “I don’t want to pretend this is easy, I mean I do but it’s not and I don’t-”
They have reached a crossroads, and from there they will take different paths. Parallel lines in two different continents, and never shall they meet again. There is a day left for them both - hours, if Sean is honest with himself - and that’s not enough.
“We can’t take the easy path anymore, can we,” Viggo says, his voice low and quiet. The smile has turned upside down, and Sean’s shoulders shake as they lean their foreheads against each other. Draws in each other exhales and stops there, tries to hold the air in their throats as if they can stop time like this. But it rushes out of their lungs anyway, and though Sean has never been good with metaphors, he understands this too.
He kisses Viggo again, rough and messy, their lips sliding against each other, spit smearing over the corners of their mouths. All rough edges without the vagueness of words to blunt them. Sean can’t grasp for words any longer, and there’s nothing fictional about this. He might read Shakespeare but he is no Ferdinand, no Romeo, capable of weaving beautiful words to woo. Not even Mercutio or Falstaff-his thoughts break away, shatter into pieces as Viggo’s tongue curls up against his palate, and Sean abandons them.
Slowly, reluctantly, their lips part, and they pant against each other. Sean’s fingers are forming little crescents on Viggo’s shoulder, marks that will disappear in minutes. Viggo tilts his head up, and there are shadows in his eyes that makes Sean’s breathing shake.
“Please,” Viggo begs, quietly. “Please, let’s just-”
Viggo’s hand is hot on the front of Sean’s pants, palming his crotch, and though there is protest on Sean’s tongue, he can only moan into a warm mouth. His hips jerk forward, hands trembling as he reaches for Viggo. He wants to talk; wants to release all the words that weigh heavy on his tongue. Their positions have changed - usually Sean opts for silence and actions, but now Viggo’s fingers are desperate, rough and urgent on his cock, rubbing hard. He’s making small little sounds at the back of his throat, his hips grinding against Sean’s. And Sean finds himself reaching forward, fingers scrabbling at Viggo’s belt, pulling at leather and metal, letting the buckle bite at his skin.
This isn’t a goodbye.
Goodbyes are supposed to be soft, sweet thing, or so the strange romance novels that Sean’s mother reads say. This is rough, urgent, Viggo wiggling between Sean and the fence as he tries to shove his slacks off his hips; Sean’s hand curving around his cock, the skin silky and slick with precome already; Viggo’s rough panting, his exhales wetting Sean’s lips even as his tongue swipes at his teeth.
Sean’s back is to the door of the rooftop, and anyone can come in. Maybe a girl, shyly blushing as she drags the senior she’s had a crush on for years to tell him that she loves him, the day before he graduates. Maybe even a teacher. But Sean has lost all ability to think about the world when Viggo’s fingers close around his cock and tugs. Even if someone comes in, then perhaps Sean will have an excuse to leave, something that will have him thrown out of the house, the school, the very city until he has no other choice than to follow Viggo over the sea.
If their lives are fictional, it will end with Sean hiding in the cargo section of Viggo’s ship, and Viggo will find him right when he’s cold, and brings him somewhere warm.
But stories don’t feel as real as this: the burn that starts from his groin and spreads outwards and upwards, until Sean’s neck feels hotter than a welding torch; the way Viggo’s hip bumps against his clumsily with every rock, every thrust, their feet sliding on the smooth concrete floor of the roof; the smell of Viggo’s hair, turpentine and sun, the strangest combination that Sean’s mind will never be able to conjure.
He gasps as he comes, his hand closing tight around Viggo’s cock, squeezing hard. And Sean takes in Viggo’s little moan and the sight of him throwing his head back; stores the memory deep within his heart for him to take out somewhere down the path it’s inevitable that he will walk, so he will feel warmth again, if not the burn.
They lean against each other like this. The fence bites into Sean’s hand and surely Viggo’s shoulders, but neither of them move. There’s wet stickiness on both of their hands, and Sean’s shoulders shake over the feel of his own slacks half-hanging down his hips, in deep danger of simply falling off.
Now Viggo’s eyes are dark blue, the colour of the seas right before a thunderstorm. There’s a metaphor in that too, but Sean prefers the salt of their come mixed with Viggo’s sweat on those callused and stained hands. He licks Viggo’s fingers, sliding his tongue over skin, feeling the whorls of his fingertips and wonders when that has become familiar; when Viggo’s fingerprints have been inked onto the tip of Sean’s tongue, an invisible tattoo.
Viggo’s breathing hitches.
There are words on his tongue, Sean knows - Viggo has always been better with words; has always relied on them more than Sean ever has. But Viggo only lowers his eyes, drawing Sean’s hand upwards and into his mouth, teeth scraping against the tips before he sucks on them, swiping the skin clean of come with every stroke of his tongue.
Tomorrow morning, Viggo will walk up to the stage to receive the piece of paper that concludes his school years and his life in England. Sean will be standing at the corner of the auditorium, too far away for Viggo’s eyes to be able to meet his. That’s alright, because what they have is entirely theirs, untainted by the judgment and knowledge of others. It’s entirely theirs, and it will remain theirs even when Viggo takes the plane to go to New York in a couple of weeks. A secret that they keep deep in their hearts, buried so deep inside that even the rot of maturity will never reach it.
The ceremony is less than sixteen hours away. Viggo and Sean will have even less, because Viggo will have to go home early today so he won’t have eyebags for the graduation photograph tomorrow. This moment lasts only a few seconds, and even the taste of salt will eventually fade from Sean’s tongue.
“I love you,” Sean blurts out. He laughs at himself, at his own appalling timing, burying his face into Viggo’s shoulder. “Don’t go,” he whispers, because he has to try.
Soft gusts of air ghosts over his neck. Viggo makes a sound, almost like a sob.
“Yeah,” he says, his hand burying into Sean’s hair, cupping his neck. His body is warm and solid, bracketed by Sean’s own arms. “I won’t go. I love you, and I won’t go.”
Viggo is a cruel bastard. But so is Sean, for asking.
“I’ll stay here,” Viggo says, his voice thick with tears. “I’ll stay here with you for the next few hours.”
End
When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults. -Brian Aldiss