Six Years

[shaan-lien.livejournal.com]

Title: Six Years
Category: LotR RPS
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Summary: Fearing Viggo's reaction, Orli finally admits to his feelings about his friend that have remained hidden for four and a half years.


Previous Chapters:
Four and a Half
Settling
Waiting for Inspiration



I didn’t know what to think. I knew only that I didn’t want him to go. He had already side-stepped me quickly, mumbling his apologies as he left the kitchen in a hurry. Now he took the stairs faster than before, two and three at a time, undoubtedly anything to get away from me. Still I remained rooted in my spot, not moving cause I didn’t know what to say beyond the fact that I didn’t want him to leave. But he was already coming down the stairs with his single bag slung over his shoulder that he hadn’t unpacked from last night. I moved at once from the spot on the kitchen floor I was sure to be permanently grounded to if I didn’t move sooner or later.

I caught his arm, my fingers no longer able to curl around his forearm, but near enough. He was distraught, I knew him well enough to feel that from him even though his face was set in what could only be described as lassitude. Such a word could not be used too often because of it’s rarity in everyday language, but it fit perfectly with Orli’s expression, the slump of his shoulders, everything. I opened my mouth to speak, but the words didn’t come yet, so instead I brushed the bag from his shoulder, setting it down on the floor of the hallway and he didn’t resist, though he hung his head and looked away from me.

“Don’t go,” I insisted, exchanging the strap of the bag for his hand. When last I took his hand, they had been heavily callused in his fingers, but now his hands were completely rough, hardened by either swordplay, archery, or his training for playing a blacksmith.

“Viggo,” he breathed in protest, shaking his head dismally, his wavy hair falling into his face. “You can be disgusted. I wouldn’t blame you. I think I am too, if I fucking knew how I felt about anything. But I couldn’t go on lying to you any more; I couldn’t do that to you even if this’ll be the end of our friendship. I wasn’t going to lie to you, Vig, not anymore. I didn’t want you—this to be another role for me to play.”

I cupped the side of his face in my hand, unused to the beard, which was both soft and prickly beneath my hand. I almost smiled as I remembered the twenty-one year old boy I had met complete with a Mohawk and an everlasting supply of energy and radiance that no one ever wished to dim. I remembered his eagerness, his sharp eyes taking in everything, hoping to learn something from anyone and everyone. Some could say that he had grown, matured, mellowed. He had been mature then, for anyone who cared to look before it beneath the exuberant personality and a grown man who would actually bounce in his enthusiasm in public and not give a damn what anyone thought about it.

Back then we had some of the most interesting and profound conversations whether it be able literature, photography, or art in general. Whatever present catastrophe consumed the world or occurrences in less recent history. He could be silent when he wanted to, though that didn’t mean he could sit still, he never could do that. Now it was due to the injury to his back, the pain that he was in, though he would never say how much he hurt. Everyday he would do stretches so his back wouldn’t become tight during filming, sometimes I saw him downing a couple pills after a shoot that would make him drowsy. He would bail on the hobbits on those nights, but still would take Lij skydiving or whoever else bungee jumping, surfing, snowboarding, or dirt biking.

Some had always scoffed at Orli at his seemingly reckless actions, thinking that he was looking to get himself hurt, but I knew to the contrary. He just wanted to experience life, he had a healthy respect for it as well, just didn’t want to be bound by fears, fears that he would re-injure his back and be confined to a bed in pain with only a ceiling to stare at with doctors telling him he would never walk again.

“You didn’t ruin anything,” I began, but his face twisted into anger and distress as he backed away from me, freeing his arm from my grasp none too gently. Before he could speak, I grabbed his arm again. “Let me finish.” He shook his head, not wanting to hear what I had to say, what he had imagined I would think of him. I held him by his shoulders. “Let me finish.”

After a moment he nodded, his brown eyes finding mine, wide with such vulnerability and I felt as if I had Orli’s heart in my hands at that moment. “I could never be disgusted with you, no matter what you feel, I would never think less of you. You aren’t capable of anything that would disgust me. I’m asking you not to leave, I want you to stay.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you, Orlando, that’s why. I always have.”

Shaking his head, Orli knocked my hands away. “Don’t play games with me,” he spat, picking up his bag and going to the door. He barely got it open before I slapped my hand on the door, slamming it shut.

“I wouldn’t do that to you and you know it. It’s not a game, I swear. It’s been the truth from almost the week I met you. I just—I didn’t let myself think about it. I thought the same as you do now, that it would ruin our friendship. I don’t know how to even explain this to you because I never thought I would have to, I thought I could bury it away and just be your friend and it got easier after everything in New Zealand was finished, when we all went our separate directions. Easier, but it wasn’t gone. I guess that’s when you know you actually love a person, when you’ve been apart from them for so long and you feel incomplete, lacking without them. When you think about them everyday, when your heart beats a little faster when you hear their name mentioned, when your day is made by their voice on the phone. That’s what you did for me and I tried so hard to forget you. I wanted to. I made myself forget that I was in love with you, that I was attracted to everything about you, beyond what I’ve felt for any other person in my life, but I could never forget simply that I loved you. Your company, your friendship. Six years, Orli. Six years I’ve loved you.”

I stepped away from the door. There was such confusion on his face, knowing what I had said and perhaps replaying them over and over in his mind, his eyes never leaving mine as if still not believing that I was telling him the truth. Tears filled his eyes, but he blinked them away, then shook his head and left, the door closing behind him softly, his bag left by the door.