Turn Your Face to the Sea
Title: Turn Your Face to the Sea
Recipient: ullman79
Pairing: Viggo/Bean
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After all this time, Viggo is convinced that Sean is a force of nature.
Pre-reveal Notes: I hope that I've managed to strike a balance of domestic established relationship fic without including too much sappy, fluffy sentiment. Happy Holidays, ullman79!
Whenever Sean returns to their home in Topanga -- after bags have been dropped, clothes shed, and jetlag slept off -- the first thing he does is mutter darkly about the yard, stalking out back with rake and mower, spade and hose, only to disappear for hours at a time, presumably restoring order to the chaos that reigns when Viggo is left in charge.
Viggo knows better than to interfere. He'd call it a triumph of man over nature if he wasn't so sure that in another life, Sean was some sort of elemental, and this was his way of reconnecting after being so long away.
Instead, he puts the kettle on and settles down, waiting for Sean to be released from brambled bondage, which, once tamed, can be left to fend for itself long enough for Viggo to relearn Sean's own rough terrain.
One of the problems -- and joys -- of being an actor is all the travel. So many far-flung places to explore, so many new worlds to create, so many fresh faces to memorize... and so many homes to leave behind, set up again, visit and revisit. It feels as if you're forever a nomad, wandering free from the tethers of the earth, but infinitely without roots, without one single firm plot of ground to plant and watch grow. The earth still turns, the weather still changes, but you're never in one place long enough to feel gravity pull at you, to see the seasons cycle through.
Viggo knows this. And as much as he wouldn't change a moment of his life, the settlings and resettlings are wearying at times. Some part of him makes him feel like he is forever loitering in an airport lounge, watching the people he cares about leaving, and waiting for them to come back again. He feels like he's forever packing and unpacking, forever slipping in and out of the outfits, responsibilities, personas and identities he wears at home and away.
He gets used to driving back and forth to the airport. Sometimes he's picking up a colleague; sometimes he's dropping them off. Almost everyone tells him they can catch a cab, but he appreciates the chance to drive. He likes boning up on left-hand driving, confident in the knowledge that if he was dropped into the wilds of Britain he could commandeer a vehicle, successfully navigate the roadways and find himself the nearest high tea.
This, he feels, is the singularly most important skill to have where the British are concerned.
Besides, Wellington is beautiful, and acting as the crew's airport shuttle is as good an excuse as any to explore it a little more.
He takes great pleasure in the loops and curves of the road, the sharp, sudden drops that would put the finest rollercoaster in the world to shame. There's something exhilarating in the plunge, even in midday traffic, and he finds, as time goes on, that he appreciates the little glimpses of his friends in times of parting and reunion. These tiny flecks of time tell him more about the person than all the bar crawls in the world.
Orlando, he finds, is as excited about leaving as he is at returning. He's swept along by adrenaline, constantly in a state of suspense, constantly on the lookout for the next adventure. He heaves his suitcase in the trunk with all of his strength and ignores how it bounces. Viggo grins and makes sure to tell him he has a future as a baggage handler should the acting gig not work out.
The boy's energy could power a whole block, Viggo thinks, and it's slightly unnerving when all that vigour is turned and focussed on you.
Viggo's no spring chicken, but neither is he an innocent, and so it's easy enough for him to see Orlando wears his heart on his sleeve. It's even easier to see that that heart is set on Viggo, and when they're alone together, Orlando looks at nothing else. He chatters on incessantly, completely blind to the charms of the city, and completely focussed on whatever charms he sees in Viggo. It's flattering, and it would almost be alluring if Viggo was twenty years younger. Instead, he is careful to turn Orlando's attention aside, pointing out the Chocolate Fish as they pass, hoping to steer Orlando into less amorous waters with reminders of the comforts of this home away from home.
There's a certain charm in being in a vehicle with Elijah. He's almost as energetic as Orlando, but his focus is outside the vehicle, not in it, and Viggo finds he breathes a sigh of relief, lungs filling with fresh sea air, at not being the centre of attention. He points out the sweep of the harbour, the shapes of the clouds, but Elijah's eye is pulled unerringly to the throngs of people, the colourful houses, absorbed by the clamour of humanity rather than the expanse of nature.
They talk about clubs and pubs and music and theatre, about the people they know and the ones still to meet, but Elijah's life is not Viggo's own. There is no quietude, no tranquillity, only the rush of youth eager to drink in sensation. Viggo remembers being drunk like that, tipsy after only a glancing glimpse of thigh, a flash of skin, but he holds his addictions far better as he grows older, and now only the angle of a mountain, the curve of a wave leaves him as giddy as if he had imbibed half his liquor cabinet.
Much of the younger cast falls in line with the Hobbits and the Elfboy, he finds; they're so focussed on the here and now, on catching sight and capturing the transient that they never look beyond it to the immortal, the immemorial. Viggo looks to the older cast, seeking out some kindred spirit there, but for most, they are so focussed on the project, so used to the view, or so busy tying up loose ends before and after their flights that they barely give the windshield so much as a glance.
Except for Bean.
From the moment they met, Viggo's found himself drawn to the quiet Englishman, delighting in shared passions, hobbies, and the simple ability to spend time with him in comfortable silence. Even more so, he's privately pleased that Sean talks more to him than he does to anyone else, and when it's just the two of them, Sean's words bubble up and out like a spring, a happy rumble of thoughts, opinions, ideas and even the odd feeling.
Yet when they're out driving, whether it's to or from the airport or back and forth to work, that pleasing burble stops the moment the ocean heaves into sight, silence settling over them both while Sean turns to look at the sea.
Sweated and exhausted from their welcome home, Viggo rolls off Sean and onto the bed. He licks his lips, reaching for the cigarette Sean's already lit. The smoke fills his senses, a pleasant fog descending over the sharp memory of every touch, each caress, every sound and movement of the past hour or more. He curls into the crook of Sean's arm, relinquishing the burning stub before it's nothing more than ash, stroking his hand down the length of Sean's body. They lie there in comfortable, companionable silence until Sean asks the same question as always, as inevitable as a flower turning towards sunlight, as a wave breaking on the beach.
"Why me?"
Viggo shrugs, sliding his arm over Sean's waist, resting his head on the broad chest. How do you explain to a sylph who has come in from the cold, an undine on dry land that you've been waiting your whole life for a connection beyond the temporary?
"Because," Viggo murmurs, and after all these years, he's still at a loss for better words, "you turned your face to the sea."