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vigorliTitle: A Summer Place
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
arieltachna
Type: RPS
Pairing: Viggo/Orlando
Rating: NC-17
Warning: Just sex
Disclaimer: I don’t know the actors. I just make up stories when I get bored. Any real places or historical figures are represented to the best of my knowledge and with nothing but the most profound respect.
Feedback: Please.
Beta: the irreplaceablenamarie120
Summary: In protecting a local blacksmith from a murderer, overseer Viggo Mortensen meets the love of his life. Does he dare to claim that love for his own?
Banner bymesnica
Chapter 2
“No, damn it! I already told you I didn’t want to do this.”
Sean looked at his friend, the local blacksmith, and shook his head. “And I told you, Orlando, that I wasn’t giving you a choice,” he retorted.
“What are you going to do if I refuse?” the young man challenged. “Lock me up? I haven’t done anything wrong, Sean, and you know it.”
Sean sighed. Orlando was right, of course. Half the town had been sitting in the tavern with him that night when Law was killed. There was no question of Orlando’s guilt or innocence. However, Sean was not risking so much as a hair on that head of dark brown curls. “I may know it,” he agreed, “but having to prove it before a court of law would be time-consuming and expensive. You have the best motive, after all,” he pointed out. “He was cheating on you.”
The words carried no heat, no condemnation, but Orlando felt them like a blow. “I loved him, Sean,” he whispered. “Even after what he did, if I could have believed he would stay faithful, I would have taken him back. Now I’ll never know what might have happened, what we could have been. Haven’t I suffered enough?”
Sean’s menacing façade shattered at the sight of Orlando’s genuine distress. There was a time when he would have pulled the boy into his arms to comfort him, a time when the boy truly was a boy. Sean could remember clearly the first time he had seen the lad, a stowaway who had snuck off the schooner he had snuck on a week earlier to get out of Boston. The captain of the ship had been livid when he caught the boy, dragging him to the sheriff and demanding justice. What a twelve year old boy could offer the captain was beyond Sean, and rather than see the lad in more trouble, he had paid the captain himself and informed Orlando that he could pay Sean back by doing odd jobs around his house. Bernard Hill, the local blacksmith, had agreed to take Orlando on as an apprentice a few months later, when the boy had proved his dedication in Sean’s office. Now, thirteen years later, Sean saw not the boy but a man, grieving the loss of his lover. That, too, held Sean back. He did not condemn Orlando for his choice, but he was no longer completely sure how to interact with his longtime friend. Would the embrace he offered in comfort be viewed as more than Sean was willing to give?
If he forced his mind to look at the blacksmith objectively, the sheriff could see the younger man’s profligate beauty, could understand why a woman would desire him. Orlando had the face of an angel, high, delicate cheekbones that belied the brawn that came with his choice of profession, a curved bow of a mouth, the lower lip barely plump enough to form an irresistible pout. He had heard the young women exclaiming over the breadth of the blacksmith’s chest, the strength of his arms if they happened to see him working in his shirtsleeves. Yes, he could see it when he looked at Orlando objectively, but the moment he abandoned that objectivity, he saw the man again, and that was the end of Sean’s interest.
“Yes,” he replied, answering Orlando’s question. “That’s why I need you to take this job. I don’t want you going through what Jude went through. I don’t want to find you stripped and strangled and violated.”
Orlando’s head jerked up. This was news Sean had not shared with him before. “V… violated?” he stuttered, his heart breaking all over again as he finally understood that Sean was not simply worrying for nothing.
Sean nodded. He had not wanted to tell Orlando, but it had clearly become necessary. “They, whoever they are, used a broom handle,” he said softly, “and left it inside him. He died from having his throat slit, but he had bled, and badly, before they killed him.”
“They killed him because of me,” Orlando whispered, stricken.
“No,” Sean insisted. “They killed him because they’re narrow-minded bigots who have no place on this island. It’s my job to find them before they kill again. And since they know about you and Jude thanks to the lovely scene the two of you enacted, you’re their next likely target. I can spend all my time here, watching you, or I can put you the safest place on the island besides my jail and spend my time tracking them down. Which do you prefer?”
Orlando did not hesitate. “Find the bastards,” he declared. “I’ll go to this construction site and do their pretty metalworking if you think that’ll keep me safe. But find them, Sean. I want to do to them what they did to Jude.”
“You know that’s not an option,” Sean reminded him.
“I know,” Orlando replied, “but I can dream.” He took a deep breath and locked away the grief and anger he still felt at Jude’s death. “I don’t think I’ve ever talked with this overseer. What’s he like?”
Sean smiled. “Quiet,” he began. “Reserved, but reliable. He’s agreed to hire you and help keep you safe. Now all we have to do is get you out there and settled.”
“I guess I’ll need to take some things with me, won’t I?” Orlando asked, looking around his small house. “I probably won’t be coming back here for a while.”
“Not until I catch the bastards,” Sean agreed, “but if you forget anything, let me know and I’ll bring it out to the camp for you. For now, let’s just get the basics.”
Orlando nodded and started to prepare a pack. He had a bedroll he used when he hiked up into the mountains on the back side of the island. He pulled that out of a cupboard and added several changes of clothing and a shaving kit. A towel and a set of metal dishes completed his gear. “That should do it for now,” he declared. “I’ll need my tools, but I won’t be able to carry those. I’ll see what this Mr. Mortensen has on site and bring a wagon back for the rest, duly escorted, I promise.”
Sean nodded. “I know you think I’m being overprotective, and maybe I am, but I’d rather be that way and have you alive than find you dead somewhere.”
Orlando grimaced. “As you say.” He cast one last glance around his little house, trying to make sure he had not forgotten anything important. He hated to leave, which was why he had argued so long with Sean over the necessity of it. All his life, he had lived under someone else’s roof. First his parents’, then Sean’s, then Bernard’s. Finally, he had his own place, his own space, only to have to leave it not six months later. He knew what life would be like in the camp, living in tents, probably with several other men, no privacy, nowhere to go to be alone for a few minutes to tend to his personal needs. And the other men would have heard about Jude, about the argument he and Orlando had before Jude’s death. They would know Orlando preferred male company to female and they would look at him askance, wondering if it was catching or if he would try something while they slept. He would not, of course, as he preferred his lovers willing and eager, but it would take weeks or more to convince the other workers of that, and for that time, he would, once again, be the outsider, the outcast. Just once, he thought, he would like to be welcomed for who he was rather than judged for it.
*******
The sheriff’s comment about workers already being at the site had Viggo more than a little concerned. Though far from finished, the manor and storage sheds already contained valuable materials and tools. If any damage had been done, if anything had been taken, that would put them behind schedule, and ultimately, he would have to answer for that. Emerson trusted him to get the building done right and on time, without exceeding the agreed-upon price. So far, Viggo had delivered. He had no intention of failing. That meant getting to the site and seeing what was going on as quickly as possible.
Fortunately, the owner of the tavern had a nag he was willing to rent Viggo until the overseer could make arrangements for the summer. Swinging aboard the horse, Viggo headed for Cleftstone Manor.
To his relief, he recognized the voice that challenged him when he drew near the site. Even better, when the owner of that voice stepped out of the shadows, Viggo could see a long-barreled shotgun in his hands. “It’s all right, Bana,” he called. “It’s Mortensen.”
“Mr. Mortensen!” Eric exclaimed with a sigh of relief, lowering his weapon. “We’re glad you’ve made it.”
The sheriff had not said who or how many had already come, but if Bana was here, Viggo had no doubt that Johnny Depp and Karl Urban were somewhere in the camp. The three of them had been his crew bosses since his first year as overseer, three very different men with three very different personalities, yet together they had helped him create some of the finest architecture on Mount Desert Island. “I’m glad I made it, too,” he admitted. “The journey up was… harrowing.”
Bana nodded sagely. A native of the Maine coast, though further south, he knew all about the fogs that settled in for days, or weeks at times. “It’s like that in the spring sometimes,” he agreed. “If this is the first time you’ve encountered it, you’re a lucky man.”
“I’ve had a day or two of fog before, but never weeks like we had on this trip. I’m not sure I’ve seen sun or moon since we left Boston.”
“It has been thicker than usual this year,” Eric observed. He started back toward the camp. “Have you eaten? I know you’ll be wanting something hot after the long trip. Johnny’s got enough in the pot for one more, I’m sure.”
“Thank you for the offer, but I ate in town,” Viggo replied, keeping his horse’s gait slow to match the big man’s pace afoot. He could still remember his awe the first time he had seen Eric, towering over the other men, shoulders almost half again as wide. More than once, the simple presence of the crew boss had stopped a fight before it could start. Though Viggo had reason to know he was as gentle as a lamb, Eric looked like he could tear a man apart with his bare hands. “The sheriff met me at the pier. It seems there’s been some excitement in town.”
“So I heard,” Eric agreed. “A boy got himself killed.”
“And the sheriff seems to think the killer’s not done yet,” Viggo continued. He paused to greet the other two men when they reached the tents set up in what would eventually be the gardens of Cleftstone Manor.
“Talking about that poor bugger Law?” Johnny drawled from his seat by the fire. Johnny was the oldest of the three, though he did not look it. A widower with two young children who spent the summers with their grandparents, he relied on his job with Viggo to tide him through the long winter since he did not have enough property to support himself farming. He had told Viggo in a rare moment of complete honesty that he needed the time away as well to keep him from losing his mind over his wife’s death.
“Yes,” Viggo replied. “Did you know him?”
“A little,” Johnny answered. “It’s not every day someone moves onto the island from so far away. He was a bit of a curiosity from the start.”
“I don’t think I know him… knew him,” Karl inserted. Viggo smiled at the youngest of his three crew bosses. Karl had shown up that first summer looking for work, heartbroken because his fiancée had left him for another man. Viggo had taken pity on him until he had seen the man work stone. He had not pitied him since, not with a talent like Karl possessed.
“He was the bank clerk,” Johnny said. “You know, the flamboyant one, the one whose mannerisms always seemed just a little… too much.”
Karl frowned, trying to figure out who Johnny was describing. Finally, he pulled up the image of the young blond clerk who always had a brightly colored kerchief in his breast pocket. He nodded. “I know the one you’re talking about.”
“But what’s that got to do with us, Mr. Mortensen?” Eric asked. “Why would the sheriff want to talk to you about the murder? You weren’t even on the island when it happened. He can’t think you know anything.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Viggo assured his crew. He debated what to tell the three men, not sure what their reaction would be to the revelations the sheriff had shared with him. “He wants me to hire the local blacksmith for the summer.”
“You always hire local when you can,” Johnny commented with a frown. “Why was that worth meeting you at the ship?”
Deciding there was no way around it, Viggo replied, “Because he thinks the blacksmith will be the murderer’s next target. He wants the young man – Orlando, I think he called him – to stay on the site here since we control who comes in.”
Viggo watched in silence as the three men digested that information, watched as the coin dropped and they figured out what it must mean that the sheriff wanted to protect the young man. The other men looked at each other silently for some time before Eric nodded.
“I can’t say I agree with the choices the blacksmith seems to be making,” he said slowly, “but he doesn’t deserve to be killed for them.”
The other two signaled their agreement as well.
“Glad to hear that,” the sheriff’s voice came from the darkness. “And I know Orlando will be, too.”
Author:
arieltachnaType: RPS
Pairing: Viggo/Orlando
Rating: NC-17
Warning: Just sex
Disclaimer: I don’t know the actors. I just make up stories when I get bored. Any real places or historical figures are represented to the best of my knowledge and with nothing but the most profound respect.
Feedback: Please.
Beta: the irreplaceable
namarie120Summary: In protecting a local blacksmith from a murderer, overseer Viggo Mortensen meets the love of his life. Does he dare to claim that love for his own?
Banner by
mesnicaChapter 2
“No, damn it! I already told you I didn’t want to do this.”
Sean looked at his friend, the local blacksmith, and shook his head. “And I told you, Orlando, that I wasn’t giving you a choice,” he retorted.
“What are you going to do if I refuse?” the young man challenged. “Lock me up? I haven’t done anything wrong, Sean, and you know it.”
Sean sighed. Orlando was right, of course. Half the town had been sitting in the tavern with him that night when Law was killed. There was no question of Orlando’s guilt or innocence. However, Sean was not risking so much as a hair on that head of dark brown curls. “I may know it,” he agreed, “but having to prove it before a court of law would be time-consuming and expensive. You have the best motive, after all,” he pointed out. “He was cheating on you.”
The words carried no heat, no condemnation, but Orlando felt them like a blow. “I loved him, Sean,” he whispered. “Even after what he did, if I could have believed he would stay faithful, I would have taken him back. Now I’ll never know what might have happened, what we could have been. Haven’t I suffered enough?”
Sean’s menacing façade shattered at the sight of Orlando’s genuine distress. There was a time when he would have pulled the boy into his arms to comfort him, a time when the boy truly was a boy. Sean could remember clearly the first time he had seen the lad, a stowaway who had snuck off the schooner he had snuck on a week earlier to get out of Boston. The captain of the ship had been livid when he caught the boy, dragging him to the sheriff and demanding justice. What a twelve year old boy could offer the captain was beyond Sean, and rather than see the lad in more trouble, he had paid the captain himself and informed Orlando that he could pay Sean back by doing odd jobs around his house. Bernard Hill, the local blacksmith, had agreed to take Orlando on as an apprentice a few months later, when the boy had proved his dedication in Sean’s office. Now, thirteen years later, Sean saw not the boy but a man, grieving the loss of his lover. That, too, held Sean back. He did not condemn Orlando for his choice, but he was no longer completely sure how to interact with his longtime friend. Would the embrace he offered in comfort be viewed as more than Sean was willing to give?
If he forced his mind to look at the blacksmith objectively, the sheriff could see the younger man’s profligate beauty, could understand why a woman would desire him. Orlando had the face of an angel, high, delicate cheekbones that belied the brawn that came with his choice of profession, a curved bow of a mouth, the lower lip barely plump enough to form an irresistible pout. He had heard the young women exclaiming over the breadth of the blacksmith’s chest, the strength of his arms if they happened to see him working in his shirtsleeves. Yes, he could see it when he looked at Orlando objectively, but the moment he abandoned that objectivity, he saw the man again, and that was the end of Sean’s interest.
“Yes,” he replied, answering Orlando’s question. “That’s why I need you to take this job. I don’t want you going through what Jude went through. I don’t want to find you stripped and strangled and violated.”
Orlando’s head jerked up. This was news Sean had not shared with him before. “V… violated?” he stuttered, his heart breaking all over again as he finally understood that Sean was not simply worrying for nothing.
Sean nodded. He had not wanted to tell Orlando, but it had clearly become necessary. “They, whoever they are, used a broom handle,” he said softly, “and left it inside him. He died from having his throat slit, but he had bled, and badly, before they killed him.”
“They killed him because of me,” Orlando whispered, stricken.
“No,” Sean insisted. “They killed him because they’re narrow-minded bigots who have no place on this island. It’s my job to find them before they kill again. And since they know about you and Jude thanks to the lovely scene the two of you enacted, you’re their next likely target. I can spend all my time here, watching you, or I can put you the safest place on the island besides my jail and spend my time tracking them down. Which do you prefer?”
Orlando did not hesitate. “Find the bastards,” he declared. “I’ll go to this construction site and do their pretty metalworking if you think that’ll keep me safe. But find them, Sean. I want to do to them what they did to Jude.”
“You know that’s not an option,” Sean reminded him.
“I know,” Orlando replied, “but I can dream.” He took a deep breath and locked away the grief and anger he still felt at Jude’s death. “I don’t think I’ve ever talked with this overseer. What’s he like?”
Sean smiled. “Quiet,” he began. “Reserved, but reliable. He’s agreed to hire you and help keep you safe. Now all we have to do is get you out there and settled.”
“I guess I’ll need to take some things with me, won’t I?” Orlando asked, looking around his small house. “I probably won’t be coming back here for a while.”
“Not until I catch the bastards,” Sean agreed, “but if you forget anything, let me know and I’ll bring it out to the camp for you. For now, let’s just get the basics.”
Orlando nodded and started to prepare a pack. He had a bedroll he used when he hiked up into the mountains on the back side of the island. He pulled that out of a cupboard and added several changes of clothing and a shaving kit. A towel and a set of metal dishes completed his gear. “That should do it for now,” he declared. “I’ll need my tools, but I won’t be able to carry those. I’ll see what this Mr. Mortensen has on site and bring a wagon back for the rest, duly escorted, I promise.”
Sean nodded. “I know you think I’m being overprotective, and maybe I am, but I’d rather be that way and have you alive than find you dead somewhere.”
Orlando grimaced. “As you say.” He cast one last glance around his little house, trying to make sure he had not forgotten anything important. He hated to leave, which was why he had argued so long with Sean over the necessity of it. All his life, he had lived under someone else’s roof. First his parents’, then Sean’s, then Bernard’s. Finally, he had his own place, his own space, only to have to leave it not six months later. He knew what life would be like in the camp, living in tents, probably with several other men, no privacy, nowhere to go to be alone for a few minutes to tend to his personal needs. And the other men would have heard about Jude, about the argument he and Orlando had before Jude’s death. They would know Orlando preferred male company to female and they would look at him askance, wondering if it was catching or if he would try something while they slept. He would not, of course, as he preferred his lovers willing and eager, but it would take weeks or more to convince the other workers of that, and for that time, he would, once again, be the outsider, the outcast. Just once, he thought, he would like to be welcomed for who he was rather than judged for it.
*******
The sheriff’s comment about workers already being at the site had Viggo more than a little concerned. Though far from finished, the manor and storage sheds already contained valuable materials and tools. If any damage had been done, if anything had been taken, that would put them behind schedule, and ultimately, he would have to answer for that. Emerson trusted him to get the building done right and on time, without exceeding the agreed-upon price. So far, Viggo had delivered. He had no intention of failing. That meant getting to the site and seeing what was going on as quickly as possible.
Fortunately, the owner of the tavern had a nag he was willing to rent Viggo until the overseer could make arrangements for the summer. Swinging aboard the horse, Viggo headed for Cleftstone Manor.
To his relief, he recognized the voice that challenged him when he drew near the site. Even better, when the owner of that voice stepped out of the shadows, Viggo could see a long-barreled shotgun in his hands. “It’s all right, Bana,” he called. “It’s Mortensen.”
“Mr. Mortensen!” Eric exclaimed with a sigh of relief, lowering his weapon. “We’re glad you’ve made it.”
The sheriff had not said who or how many had already come, but if Bana was here, Viggo had no doubt that Johnny Depp and Karl Urban were somewhere in the camp. The three of them had been his crew bosses since his first year as overseer, three very different men with three very different personalities, yet together they had helped him create some of the finest architecture on Mount Desert Island. “I’m glad I made it, too,” he admitted. “The journey up was… harrowing.”
Bana nodded sagely. A native of the Maine coast, though further south, he knew all about the fogs that settled in for days, or weeks at times. “It’s like that in the spring sometimes,” he agreed. “If this is the first time you’ve encountered it, you’re a lucky man.”
“I’ve had a day or two of fog before, but never weeks like we had on this trip. I’m not sure I’ve seen sun or moon since we left Boston.”
“It has been thicker than usual this year,” Eric observed. He started back toward the camp. “Have you eaten? I know you’ll be wanting something hot after the long trip. Johnny’s got enough in the pot for one more, I’m sure.”
“Thank you for the offer, but I ate in town,” Viggo replied, keeping his horse’s gait slow to match the big man’s pace afoot. He could still remember his awe the first time he had seen Eric, towering over the other men, shoulders almost half again as wide. More than once, the simple presence of the crew boss had stopped a fight before it could start. Though Viggo had reason to know he was as gentle as a lamb, Eric looked like he could tear a man apart with his bare hands. “The sheriff met me at the pier. It seems there’s been some excitement in town.”
“So I heard,” Eric agreed. “A boy got himself killed.”
“And the sheriff seems to think the killer’s not done yet,” Viggo continued. He paused to greet the other two men when they reached the tents set up in what would eventually be the gardens of Cleftstone Manor.
“Talking about that poor bugger Law?” Johnny drawled from his seat by the fire. Johnny was the oldest of the three, though he did not look it. A widower with two young children who spent the summers with their grandparents, he relied on his job with Viggo to tide him through the long winter since he did not have enough property to support himself farming. He had told Viggo in a rare moment of complete honesty that he needed the time away as well to keep him from losing his mind over his wife’s death.
“Yes,” Viggo replied. “Did you know him?”
“A little,” Johnny answered. “It’s not every day someone moves onto the island from so far away. He was a bit of a curiosity from the start.”
“I don’t think I know him… knew him,” Karl inserted. Viggo smiled at the youngest of his three crew bosses. Karl had shown up that first summer looking for work, heartbroken because his fiancée had left him for another man. Viggo had taken pity on him until he had seen the man work stone. He had not pitied him since, not with a talent like Karl possessed.
“He was the bank clerk,” Johnny said. “You know, the flamboyant one, the one whose mannerisms always seemed just a little… too much.”
Karl frowned, trying to figure out who Johnny was describing. Finally, he pulled up the image of the young blond clerk who always had a brightly colored kerchief in his breast pocket. He nodded. “I know the one you’re talking about.”
“But what’s that got to do with us, Mr. Mortensen?” Eric asked. “Why would the sheriff want to talk to you about the murder? You weren’t even on the island when it happened. He can’t think you know anything.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Viggo assured his crew. He debated what to tell the three men, not sure what their reaction would be to the revelations the sheriff had shared with him. “He wants me to hire the local blacksmith for the summer.”
“You always hire local when you can,” Johnny commented with a frown. “Why was that worth meeting you at the ship?”
Deciding there was no way around it, Viggo replied, “Because he thinks the blacksmith will be the murderer’s next target. He wants the young man – Orlando, I think he called him – to stay on the site here since we control who comes in.”
Viggo watched in silence as the three men digested that information, watched as the coin dropped and they figured out what it must mean that the sheriff wanted to protect the young man. The other men looked at each other silently for some time before Eric nodded.
“I can’t say I agree with the choices the blacksmith seems to be making,” he said slowly, “but he doesn’t deserve to be killed for them.”
The other two signaled their agreement as well.
“Glad to hear that,” the sheriff’s voice came from the darkness. “And I know Orlando will be, too.”
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Date: 2006-08-19 06:55 pm (UTC)