Enough Guilt
Sep. 10th, 2006 09:47 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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vigorliTitle: Enough Guilt . . .
Category: LotR RPS
Pairings: VM/OB
Rating: NC-17, cursing and sex
Summary: A footie match with Beanie and getting caught in the rain with Orlando. Guilt, apologies, and making up.
Disclaimer: Um, yeah . . . not so much. The title is from Kurt Halsey’s drawing Enough Guilt.
Previous Chapters:
Waiting for Inspiration, Settling, Four and A Half, Six Years, Simply Holding, Adjusting , The Days Without, Remembrances, Blank, Idaho
Author’s Note: Sorry about the verb tense issues. I have difficulty with it when writing in first person, it changes when I really get into what I’m writing. I don’t know what the plural for ‘ex’ is and everyone knows how helpful the good ole Oxford English is.
When he called, it was in hopes that Orlando was in town, which of course, he wasn’t. I, unlike Orlando, rarely kept in touch with much of anyone except some family. He seemed surprised to hear my voice, but not surprised that I had answered Orlando’s phone in London. It was a Saturday afternoon in London and everyone seemed to have the same notion as Sean—watch a game of “footie” down at the pub. To Sean’s grumbling disgust, Sean noted that Orlando supported ManU—not that it meant anything to me. I preferred Argentina and though I knew—as far as anyone who liked soccer--of English soccer, but it wasn’t my passion.
“Where is that boy, anyway?” Bean asked as he set two pint glasses on the table between us, then seated himself in the best possible position to view the TV.
“In the Bahamas still,” I offered sipping at the beer. “He says ‘hey’, though. He’s sorry he missed you.”
“Yeah, he must be busy, I haven’t heard from him in a while.” Though this was the typical way Orlando spent time with Sean and sometimes Billy, it didn’t really appeal to me all that much. I’m not one for small talk and I’m glad that Bean didn’t expect it from me. The pub was crowded, though more in support of Liverpool than Sean’s favored Sheffield United.
His attention waned when the opposing team nearly missed and I didn’t continue until he glanced at me, not wanting to repeat myself four times. “He is. Shooting fell behind with the hurricanes and storms; they expected it to be in post by now.”
“He said he was taking some time off.”
“He would have if Pirates would have finished. He’s starting a project in September with Kate.”
That gained his full attention, his eyebrow quirked as he took a long draught of his beer. “With Kate,” he echoed.
I know my expression hardened at his tone, his words, his expression, all of it. “Yeah, with Kate,” I repeated, not having thought anything of it when Orlando told me. There wasn’t anything to think of. His shrug was meant to provoke me and try as I might, it worked. “You know Orlando better than that.”
The smirk on his face made me grip the pint glass far too tightly. “Makin’ sure you do too, mate, is all.”
“Fuck you, Beanie.”
He laughed aloud at that. There was silence between us for a while, though certainly no lack of noise in the pub. It wasn’t uncomfortable though I had the idea neither of us were paying much attention to the match, though it was paced fairly well. “What is going on between you two?” he asked softly after a few minutes.
When I faced him, his body was turned to me fully and he didn’t even look up when hopeful cheers erupted through the pub from the Liverpool fans no less. I didn’t bother to ask what he was talking about, Bean had known we were together since virtually the moment we got together. “Orlando . . . I don’t know, Sean.”
“Don’t give me that. This is OB we’re talking about. You know what’s bothering him.” I did, I couldn’t deny it. Talking about it, talking about it to a very straight Sean Bean was considerably different than knowing it or talking about it with Orlando. “Fucking hell, out with it, Vig.”
“He’s uncomfortable. I’m the only man he’s been with. And the only one he’s thought of being with. I don’t think. . . . I don’t think he’s attracted to me and I don’t expected it to be the same way I’m attracted to him, but we’re in a relationship, Sean, he should at least . . .”
“I know what you’re saying.”
I stared at the amber liquid before me that was verging on lukewarm by now, but I hardly cared. I barely even tasted it. “I brought it up once.”
“And?”
“He said he wasn’t, not physically.”
“But you guys still . . . have sex, fuck, what ever it is that—”
“—Yes, Sean.”
“And he starts it?”
“He has.”
“Then what’s the problem? Or is this about more than sex.”
I sighed. Heavily. “It’s not and it is.”
A frown furrowed Sean’s brow, then he pursed his lips and nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, of course. Right there with ya, mate.”
“He shouldn’t have to try.”
Bean shrugged, draining the last of his pint. “Isn’t that his decision? Lan’s a big boy now. He knows what he wants. He knew he didn’t want to be with Kate, he knew he wanted to be with you. For years, Vig, years he’s loved you, been in love and whatever else you want to call it.”
“I can’t . . . I can’t do this if it’s hurting him.”
“Hurting? You can’t be as blind as all that. He’s happy. He loves you. Hell, if any of my exes felt like that towards me way back when. . . . Fuck, I don’t think I’ve ever been that content that long in any of my marriages. If I would’ve known you and Orli back then, I would’ve never gotten married . . . never, Viggo.”
“Me neither, I suppose.”
“Give him time.”
“It’s been almost a year.”
“With your shit schedules, try two months, mate.” More silence, now I was so focused on my thoughts, this conversation, that I barely heard our surroundings. Sean didn’t so much as glance to the TV once, not even in the minutes where we both were quiet. “You can’t have it all.”
“I know, I just want him to be happy.”
“He is, if you’d let him be.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He looked away now, looking guilty, though I didn’t know why. “He told me about what happened after Elijah’s party.”
He expected me to get angry. I was a private man, he knew that; Orlando knew that. I knew that Orlando wasn’t nearly so private and that he talked about our relationship with friends, with Sean and Billy. Yet of all the private moments in my life that I could have lived happily without another soul hearing about, that took the cake, made all the others irrelevant.
I didn’t get angry, I just buried my face in my hands, not for the first time wishing I could undo that night, undo—redo, anything. Not because of my selfish emotions, but for Orlando’s sake. He hadn’t deserved taking the brunt of my frustration.
“He’s over it, you know.”
“He shouldn’t be.”
“He forgave you, Vig. He’s just worried that you’re doing this, you’re beating yourself up over something that you should be moving on from for both of your sakes.”
At least he didn’t say forget. Even drunk as we both had been, some things I would never and could never forget. “You’re fucking up the best thing in your life.”
“I already did that!” I all but shouted.
“No, Lan didn’t let you. You’re human. Orlando’s human. I’m human. We all fuck up somewhere down the road, but you gotta get past it. You can’t let this come between you. At least think of Lan.”
“I hurt him.”
A bitter laugh. “What’s the song? ‘Why Do We Always Hurt the Ones We Love’,” a pause and he pulled himself away from his own musings. “He talks to you, talk to him. It goes without saying that it shouldn’t have gotten that far, but for Christ’s sake, talk to the man.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me.”
It was half time by then and I stared at the TV without seeing for some minutes. “Did he cry when he told you?” I don’t know why I asked, I knew the answer.
“That’s between me and him. You’d just hold anything I told you against yourself.”
“I’m not going to fuck this up the way I did with Chris.”
I knew he was skeptical, the man with three exes, but he didn’t say it. “Good. I’d hate to have to hurt you.”
• • •
I think he was under the impression that I was upset with him. The day after he came home from filming Pirates we headed out to the Santa Monica Mountains to do some hiking. I’d been up in these mountains a few times before with Orlando, yet I still brought my camera and actually a notebook. I had been writing on a short story that was nearly finished but was just in need of a little nudge to get the ending going in a way that I wouldn’t scrap the instant I finished writing it. I could have spent all week in these mountains, but our time looking out over the ocean, quite a ways from where we had parked was cut considerably short.
Of course, Sidi had accompanied us. I had gotten used to having the dog around, though more often than not, Orlando took Sidi with him when he filmed. The dog was friendly, very friendly and loved everyone that Orlando loved and I had been under the impression that I was good with animals, but Sidi did not like me in the slightest. He certainly wasn’t pleased with me living in Orlando’s house in LA from time to time. Sidi and I, we didn’t live together, we simply coexisted.
It hardly ever rained like this in southern California, but there was actual thunder and lightning ripping through the hills. We were soaked to the bone and I would have abandoned even the attempt of reaching the car forty-five minutes ago if it weren’t for the lightning. It should have only taken a half an hour to reach the car since we had started heading back once we saw the storm approaching, which was a long way off since we were in the mountains. However, Sidi had run off after some damned thing that wasn’t smart enough to get out of the rain either.
Soaked and covered in dog hair since Orlando had resorted to carrying the dog after finally tracking him down, Orli’s T-shirt was forgotten in the footwell of the passenger side of the car. A notebook lay on the dashboard and that was what Orli was worried about. It was soaked as much as the three of us were. I hadn’t given it a second glance after we exited the national park. It was almost dark and raining steadily, not the best conditions to drive in LA—everyone miraculously forgot how to drive at the first drop of precipitation.
When I glanced over to Orli, he was sitting silently with a knee drawn up to his bare chest, the knuckle of his thumb between his lips, just looking at the ruined notebook. “Don’t worry about it,” I insisted, running a hand through his unbound and still dripping wet hair.
“You said you were really happy with the way that one had been going. . . . The ink’s all run.”
“I remember what I wrote, I can write it again.”
Orlando looked skeptical. So infrequently did he sculpt or do pottery or sketch something that I often forgot that he was an artist too. It was difficult to start a piece over especially when you’ve put all your energy into it the first time around. I’d lost work before and none of it I found the energy to rewrite or recreate, I normally just moved on to something else. Evidentially, Orlando seemed to be aware of that.
“It doesn’t matter,” I insisted and I saw him nod out of the corner of my eye and look out the window. Without taking my eyes off the road, I reached my hand out to run my hand up his back, over wet smooth warm skin and hard muscle.
That was the reason I hadn’t said anything in the long minutes it had taken us to exit the national park and how far we had made it back to the city. We hadn’t seen each other in weeks and all I wanted to do all day was to run my hands all over his body. Last night we had dinner together and soon after Orli had fallen asleep on the studio couch. I hadn’t wanted to wake him so I ended up sleeping alone in our bed. “Fuck,” I breathed in annoyance, pulling my hand away and gripping the steering wheel tightly. “At least it hasn’t rained in a while. We don’t need another fucking mudslide.”
“Small talk, Vig? What’s up?” Orlando asked lightly, unfurling from his position so he could stretch his back.
“You, Lan, and making me feel like a goddamn teenager.”
“Oh . . .” he said at length. His tone of voice I didn’t know and I was on the highway now when it was pouring and with hundreds of people who had never seen rain before, so I couldn’t look at him just yet. “You could pull over.”
I took in a sudden deep breath and it certainly wasn’t my first reaction to say ‘no’ to that. “I am not getting arrested for public indecency.”
He snickered at that and when I finally was able to look at him, he had reclined his chair and had his eyes closed and his hands resting on his chest. From his even breathing and the state of his wet jeans, he obviously wasn’t having the same problem, but he wasn’t asleep either.
“Your back okay?”
“Better. Took the muscle relaxants this morning,” he said with a yawn. I raised an eyebrow, but decided not to broach that subject. “When’d you say Henry was coming down?”
“Two weeks. Are you going to be here?”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re leaving after that, though? Eastern Promises you said, in London. I’ll fly out with you, wanted to see my mum and that.”
“That’d be good. I thought you were starting a project in September.”
Lando rolled a shoulder. “Bit of a toss up, really. I wouldn’t mind the down time. I think it’ll be the longest amount of time that we’ve spent together since Rings.”
“Seems forever ago.”
“Lifetime.”
“You talk to Sean recently?”
“Beanie? Yeah, yesterday when I was at the airport. Said you were a wanker. I had to agree but promised him you were really good at it.”
Thank God we were at a stop light because I gaped at him. I could see the mischievousness in his dark eyes but I couldn’t decide what that meant. “You didn’t.” He grinned broadly at me. “You did,” I sighed turning back to the road.
“Bastard hung up on me, didn’t call back for ten minutes.”
“Most people find Sean at least slightly intimidating.”
At that, Orlando laughed to the point where he was sitting up and holding his stomach. It was so good to hear him laugh like that, it seemed ages since I had seen that light in his eyes. “Beanie’s a teddy bear. He really is, Vig. Bless ‘im.” He grew serious as he adjusted his chair so he could sit up straight again. “I know you said you didn’t want to talk about it over the phone, so I’m going to bring it up now. You can’t keep thinking about it. We were both pissed and we’ve both made mistakes. You stopped, drunk or not, you stopped and that’s what matters to me. Maybe you can’t forget about it, maybe you think about it when you touch me, but I don’t. I don’t want to you to hesitate around me. You’d never consciously or willingly hurt me. I know that.”
I couldn’t say anything after his words. I could apologize to him again. I wanted to promise him that I wouldn’t hurt him again but my own guilt prevented that. We sat in silence even after we had pulled up to the house, my grip on the steering wheel aching. “I didn’t know that still bothered you.”
“It’s difficult to reconcile with myself that I could hurt you. . . . Why didn’t—why didn’t you try to stop me? I’m not saying that it was your responsibility or that it wasn’t completely my fault, but you could have. We both know that. You’re stronger than me and you weren’t that drunk.”
“I just . . . I didn’t know you were angry. I just thought you wanted it rough. I thought it’d be fine at first. Don’t apologize again, Viggo. I know you’re sorry, you’ve said it enough and more than enough with your eyes. Just . . . come inside and take a shower with me.”
I smiled gently at him and followed him inside, kissing the back of his neck as he fitted the key into the lock. We did make it upstairs and into the bathroom, but never actually in the shower. He was pressed up against me, my back against the wall, not caring in the least that the light switch and towel rack were ill-positioned and digging into my back. His hands were everywhere touching with his traditional firmness but there was an undeniable gentleness there too.
“I thought you wanted to take a shower,” I breathed as he pushed up the front of my shirt and ran his hands over my stomach.
“Think I’m wet enough. These jeans are going to be a bitch to get out of.”
“I’ll help,” I muttered as he undid my pants. I was surprised when he dropped to his knees in front of me, my pants and boxers around my knees and his hand on my cock. Only once had Orlando took my penis into his mouth and it hadn’t been for long and I didn’t think it was going to happen again. Then, suddenly, I was glad for the towel rack and the doorframe because I certainly wouldn’t have remained standing when Orlando’s mouth closed around my soon to be completely erect cock.
“O God. . . . You don’t have to do this.”
Then I could breathe again. “I want to.”
Taking in a deep breath, I stared at his face and ran my hands through his damp hair. “Fuck,” I ground out, wondering how in the hell I was a poet.
But then, suddenly, it wasn’t enough. It was intimacy in a sort of selfless way because I thought for a moment that I actually understood Orlando. Him, his motivations, his thoughts. I think I know that he’s there on his knees in front of me because he does love me, all of me, enough to want to please me even though I know it doesn’t give him the same pleasure that I feel when I take him into his mouth. It’s a realization that makes me want to cry and I feel the ache constricting my heart. So strange to know that someone, that he loves me that much. He wouldn’t do it for any other reason. He does what he believes in and if his heart isn’t in it, I can always see.
“Stop. Stop,” is all I can breathe as I pull him up with shaking hands to his feet. And then my tears are on his face as well as I guide him backwards to the bed, my mouth and hands not leaving him for a moment. The strength of his hands was normally calming, but he was perhaps affected by the frantic need burning in me. Burning to touch, to be inside him.
Now we’re half on the bed, half off and his jeans are around his ankles and all he says is “hurry” as I reach for the lube even though one finger is already inside him. When I enter him my tears aren’t the only ones anymore and he swears I’m not hurting him and he holds my hands so tightly as I move inside him. It’s short and fast until he comes around me and I still, not wanting it to end and not like this.
Face-to-face, we almost always fuck face-to-face and he’s never said anything about it and I wonder if he wants to. But now . . . now . . . I want to see his face.
His jeans are still wet and I free him from those, his boxers, his shoes, and his socks and now he’s just Orlando. He’s already turning around, facing me, pulling off my shirt, but I don’t care about the jeans enough to move from him for a second.
His hands enveloped my sides and I thought for a moment that he was trying to stop me, but he was staring at me, his eyes examining every inch of me he could see. “I am,” he said suddenly and I raised my eyes to his instead of his hands on my body.
“Am what?” I asked still poised above him, arms braced on either side of his head.
“Attracted to you.”
I didn’t say anything, didn’t know what to say to that or the look in his eyes. This was so typical of Orlando, launchings into a conversation we had started a month before as if it was only a moment ago.
“I feel . . . safe with you. A way I never could with a woman, but wanted to, I think. Guess that’s my own fault. Never gave anyone else but you enough of myself. Your strength, the strength of your body, your voice, your conviction, everything. . . . At—at first, I wouldn’t let myself—fuck . . . I shouldn’t. . . . Sorry.”
“Don’t. Tell me, Lan.”
“No, it’s okay,” he insisted. With a smile, he reached between us to wrap his hand around my cock while bringing up his knees. “You have to be hurting.”
I grabbed his wrists, sat back and planted on hand on his hip to keep him down all at once, wiping away the tears on his face that are both mine and his. “What you have to say is more important.”
His expression was more serious now, introspective as if he wasn’t lying beneath me, legs spread, his cum drying on his stomach, his body open from me. “I wasn’t used to being with you. It didn’t feel right, you inside me because I wasn’t used to the . . . dynamic, I guess you could call it. That lack of control being beneath someone like that--it was more than just the sex. But now I—it’s different, it’s not like I thought. I’m safe with you, I feel safe with you. Sounds like a fucking porno and whatever the fuck, but being beneath you, held by you—it doesn’t make me uncomfortable anymore.”
“You’re always safe with me.”
He sat up to kiss me, his hands running up and down my arms and shoulders, fingertips tracing the contours of my triceps. “Thank you,” he said softly as if embarrassed. Embarrassed to even have to bring this up, that we would have to talk about this at all—we were both men after all.
“Don’t mention it,” I mollified running a hand over his perineum, sac, and his nearly soft cock.
He shivered and winced, capturing my hand and taking it from apparently still sensitive penis. “I’m not that young, not anymore.”
I laughed against his lips as I slowly pushed into him, Orlando raised his hips to meet mine, his eyes closing as I entered him. “Okay?” I breathed as my hips came flush against his. He breathed out shakily and I brushed back his long hair so I could look fully at his face. “Lando?” I prompted again when he just held onto my shoulders and didn’t open his eyes.
“Yeah, fine,” he said relaxing beneath me, his eyes falling open, looking up to me with something of adoration in his eyes. And he smiles in a way that can still steal my breath after all these years. He’s brushing away furrow of my brow with a hand, his eyes bright and shiny. “Don’t worry.”
Category: LotR RPS
Pairings: VM/OB
Rating: NC-17, cursing and sex
Summary: A footie match with Beanie and getting caught in the rain with Orlando. Guilt, apologies, and making up.
Disclaimer: Um, yeah . . . not so much. The title is from Kurt Halsey’s drawing Enough Guilt.
Previous Chapters:
Waiting for Inspiration, Settling, Four and A Half, Six Years, Simply Holding, Adjusting , The Days Without, Remembrances, Blank, Idaho
Author’s Note: Sorry about the verb tense issues. I have difficulty with it when writing in first person, it changes when I really get into what I’m writing. I don’t know what the plural for ‘ex’ is and everyone knows how helpful the good ole Oxford English is.
When he called, it was in hopes that Orlando was in town, which of course, he wasn’t. I, unlike Orlando, rarely kept in touch with much of anyone except some family. He seemed surprised to hear my voice, but not surprised that I had answered Orlando’s phone in London. It was a Saturday afternoon in London and everyone seemed to have the same notion as Sean—watch a game of “footie” down at the pub. To Sean’s grumbling disgust, Sean noted that Orlando supported ManU—not that it meant anything to me. I preferred Argentina and though I knew—as far as anyone who liked soccer--of English soccer, but it wasn’t my passion.
“Where is that boy, anyway?” Bean asked as he set two pint glasses on the table between us, then seated himself in the best possible position to view the TV.
“In the Bahamas still,” I offered sipping at the beer. “He says ‘hey’, though. He’s sorry he missed you.”
“Yeah, he must be busy, I haven’t heard from him in a while.” Though this was the typical way Orlando spent time with Sean and sometimes Billy, it didn’t really appeal to me all that much. I’m not one for small talk and I’m glad that Bean didn’t expect it from me. The pub was crowded, though more in support of Liverpool than Sean’s favored Sheffield United.
His attention waned when the opposing team nearly missed and I didn’t continue until he glanced at me, not wanting to repeat myself four times. “He is. Shooting fell behind with the hurricanes and storms; they expected it to be in post by now.”
“He said he was taking some time off.”
“He would have if Pirates would have finished. He’s starting a project in September with Kate.”
That gained his full attention, his eyebrow quirked as he took a long draught of his beer. “With Kate,” he echoed.
I know my expression hardened at his tone, his words, his expression, all of it. “Yeah, with Kate,” I repeated, not having thought anything of it when Orlando told me. There wasn’t anything to think of. His shrug was meant to provoke me and try as I might, it worked. “You know Orlando better than that.”
The smirk on his face made me grip the pint glass far too tightly. “Makin’ sure you do too, mate, is all.”
“Fuck you, Beanie.”
He laughed aloud at that. There was silence between us for a while, though certainly no lack of noise in the pub. It wasn’t uncomfortable though I had the idea neither of us were paying much attention to the match, though it was paced fairly well. “What is going on between you two?” he asked softly after a few minutes.
When I faced him, his body was turned to me fully and he didn’t even look up when hopeful cheers erupted through the pub from the Liverpool fans no less. I didn’t bother to ask what he was talking about, Bean had known we were together since virtually the moment we got together. “Orlando . . . I don’t know, Sean.”
“Don’t give me that. This is OB we’re talking about. You know what’s bothering him.” I did, I couldn’t deny it. Talking about it, talking about it to a very straight Sean Bean was considerably different than knowing it or talking about it with Orlando. “Fucking hell, out with it, Vig.”
“He’s uncomfortable. I’m the only man he’s been with. And the only one he’s thought of being with. I don’t think. . . . I don’t think he’s attracted to me and I don’t expected it to be the same way I’m attracted to him, but we’re in a relationship, Sean, he should at least . . .”
“I know what you’re saying.”
I stared at the amber liquid before me that was verging on lukewarm by now, but I hardly cared. I barely even tasted it. “I brought it up once.”
“And?”
“He said he wasn’t, not physically.”
“But you guys still . . . have sex, fuck, what ever it is that—”
“—Yes, Sean.”
“And he starts it?”
“He has.”
“Then what’s the problem? Or is this about more than sex.”
I sighed. Heavily. “It’s not and it is.”
A frown furrowed Sean’s brow, then he pursed his lips and nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, of course. Right there with ya, mate.”
“He shouldn’t have to try.”
Bean shrugged, draining the last of his pint. “Isn’t that his decision? Lan’s a big boy now. He knows what he wants. He knew he didn’t want to be with Kate, he knew he wanted to be with you. For years, Vig, years he’s loved you, been in love and whatever else you want to call it.”
“I can’t . . . I can’t do this if it’s hurting him.”
“Hurting? You can’t be as blind as all that. He’s happy. He loves you. Hell, if any of my exes felt like that towards me way back when. . . . Fuck, I don’t think I’ve ever been that content that long in any of my marriages. If I would’ve known you and Orli back then, I would’ve never gotten married . . . never, Viggo.”
“Me neither, I suppose.”
“Give him time.”
“It’s been almost a year.”
“With your shit schedules, try two months, mate.” More silence, now I was so focused on my thoughts, this conversation, that I barely heard our surroundings. Sean didn’t so much as glance to the TV once, not even in the minutes where we both were quiet. “You can’t have it all.”
“I know, I just want him to be happy.”
“He is, if you’d let him be.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He looked away now, looking guilty, though I didn’t know why. “He told me about what happened after Elijah’s party.”
He expected me to get angry. I was a private man, he knew that; Orlando knew that. I knew that Orlando wasn’t nearly so private and that he talked about our relationship with friends, with Sean and Billy. Yet of all the private moments in my life that I could have lived happily without another soul hearing about, that took the cake, made all the others irrelevant.
I didn’t get angry, I just buried my face in my hands, not for the first time wishing I could undo that night, undo—redo, anything. Not because of my selfish emotions, but for Orlando’s sake. He hadn’t deserved taking the brunt of my frustration.
“He’s over it, you know.”
“He shouldn’t be.”
“He forgave you, Vig. He’s just worried that you’re doing this, you’re beating yourself up over something that you should be moving on from for both of your sakes.”
At least he didn’t say forget. Even drunk as we both had been, some things I would never and could never forget. “You’re fucking up the best thing in your life.”
“I already did that!” I all but shouted.
“No, Lan didn’t let you. You’re human. Orlando’s human. I’m human. We all fuck up somewhere down the road, but you gotta get past it. You can’t let this come between you. At least think of Lan.”
“I hurt him.”
A bitter laugh. “What’s the song? ‘Why Do We Always Hurt the Ones We Love’,” a pause and he pulled himself away from his own musings. “He talks to you, talk to him. It goes without saying that it shouldn’t have gotten that far, but for Christ’s sake, talk to the man.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me.”
It was half time by then and I stared at the TV without seeing for some minutes. “Did he cry when he told you?” I don’t know why I asked, I knew the answer.
“That’s between me and him. You’d just hold anything I told you against yourself.”
“I’m not going to fuck this up the way I did with Chris.”
I knew he was skeptical, the man with three exes, but he didn’t say it. “Good. I’d hate to have to hurt you.”
• • •
I think he was under the impression that I was upset with him. The day after he came home from filming Pirates we headed out to the Santa Monica Mountains to do some hiking. I’d been up in these mountains a few times before with Orlando, yet I still brought my camera and actually a notebook. I had been writing on a short story that was nearly finished but was just in need of a little nudge to get the ending going in a way that I wouldn’t scrap the instant I finished writing it. I could have spent all week in these mountains, but our time looking out over the ocean, quite a ways from where we had parked was cut considerably short.
Of course, Sidi had accompanied us. I had gotten used to having the dog around, though more often than not, Orlando took Sidi with him when he filmed. The dog was friendly, very friendly and loved everyone that Orlando loved and I had been under the impression that I was good with animals, but Sidi did not like me in the slightest. He certainly wasn’t pleased with me living in Orlando’s house in LA from time to time. Sidi and I, we didn’t live together, we simply coexisted.
It hardly ever rained like this in southern California, but there was actual thunder and lightning ripping through the hills. We were soaked to the bone and I would have abandoned even the attempt of reaching the car forty-five minutes ago if it weren’t for the lightning. It should have only taken a half an hour to reach the car since we had started heading back once we saw the storm approaching, which was a long way off since we were in the mountains. However, Sidi had run off after some damned thing that wasn’t smart enough to get out of the rain either.
Soaked and covered in dog hair since Orlando had resorted to carrying the dog after finally tracking him down, Orli’s T-shirt was forgotten in the footwell of the passenger side of the car. A notebook lay on the dashboard and that was what Orli was worried about. It was soaked as much as the three of us were. I hadn’t given it a second glance after we exited the national park. It was almost dark and raining steadily, not the best conditions to drive in LA—everyone miraculously forgot how to drive at the first drop of precipitation.
When I glanced over to Orli, he was sitting silently with a knee drawn up to his bare chest, the knuckle of his thumb between his lips, just looking at the ruined notebook. “Don’t worry about it,” I insisted, running a hand through his unbound and still dripping wet hair.
“You said you were really happy with the way that one had been going. . . . The ink’s all run.”
“I remember what I wrote, I can write it again.”
Orlando looked skeptical. So infrequently did he sculpt or do pottery or sketch something that I often forgot that he was an artist too. It was difficult to start a piece over especially when you’ve put all your energy into it the first time around. I’d lost work before and none of it I found the energy to rewrite or recreate, I normally just moved on to something else. Evidentially, Orlando seemed to be aware of that.
“It doesn’t matter,” I insisted and I saw him nod out of the corner of my eye and look out the window. Without taking my eyes off the road, I reached my hand out to run my hand up his back, over wet smooth warm skin and hard muscle.
That was the reason I hadn’t said anything in the long minutes it had taken us to exit the national park and how far we had made it back to the city. We hadn’t seen each other in weeks and all I wanted to do all day was to run my hands all over his body. Last night we had dinner together and soon after Orli had fallen asleep on the studio couch. I hadn’t wanted to wake him so I ended up sleeping alone in our bed. “Fuck,” I breathed in annoyance, pulling my hand away and gripping the steering wheel tightly. “At least it hasn’t rained in a while. We don’t need another fucking mudslide.”
“Small talk, Vig? What’s up?” Orlando asked lightly, unfurling from his position so he could stretch his back.
“You, Lan, and making me feel like a goddamn teenager.”
“Oh . . .” he said at length. His tone of voice I didn’t know and I was on the highway now when it was pouring and with hundreds of people who had never seen rain before, so I couldn’t look at him just yet. “You could pull over.”
I took in a sudden deep breath and it certainly wasn’t my first reaction to say ‘no’ to that. “I am not getting arrested for public indecency.”
He snickered at that and when I finally was able to look at him, he had reclined his chair and had his eyes closed and his hands resting on his chest. From his even breathing and the state of his wet jeans, he obviously wasn’t having the same problem, but he wasn’t asleep either.
“Your back okay?”
“Better. Took the muscle relaxants this morning,” he said with a yawn. I raised an eyebrow, but decided not to broach that subject. “When’d you say Henry was coming down?”
“Two weeks. Are you going to be here?”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re leaving after that, though? Eastern Promises you said, in London. I’ll fly out with you, wanted to see my mum and that.”
“That’d be good. I thought you were starting a project in September.”
Lando rolled a shoulder. “Bit of a toss up, really. I wouldn’t mind the down time. I think it’ll be the longest amount of time that we’ve spent together since Rings.”
“Seems forever ago.”
“Lifetime.”
“You talk to Sean recently?”
“Beanie? Yeah, yesterday when I was at the airport. Said you were a wanker. I had to agree but promised him you were really good at it.”
Thank God we were at a stop light because I gaped at him. I could see the mischievousness in his dark eyes but I couldn’t decide what that meant. “You didn’t.” He grinned broadly at me. “You did,” I sighed turning back to the road.
“Bastard hung up on me, didn’t call back for ten minutes.”
“Most people find Sean at least slightly intimidating.”
At that, Orlando laughed to the point where he was sitting up and holding his stomach. It was so good to hear him laugh like that, it seemed ages since I had seen that light in his eyes. “Beanie’s a teddy bear. He really is, Vig. Bless ‘im.” He grew serious as he adjusted his chair so he could sit up straight again. “I know you said you didn’t want to talk about it over the phone, so I’m going to bring it up now. You can’t keep thinking about it. We were both pissed and we’ve both made mistakes. You stopped, drunk or not, you stopped and that’s what matters to me. Maybe you can’t forget about it, maybe you think about it when you touch me, but I don’t. I don’t want to you to hesitate around me. You’d never consciously or willingly hurt me. I know that.”
I couldn’t say anything after his words. I could apologize to him again. I wanted to promise him that I wouldn’t hurt him again but my own guilt prevented that. We sat in silence even after we had pulled up to the house, my grip on the steering wheel aching. “I didn’t know that still bothered you.”
“It’s difficult to reconcile with myself that I could hurt you. . . . Why didn’t—why didn’t you try to stop me? I’m not saying that it was your responsibility or that it wasn’t completely my fault, but you could have. We both know that. You’re stronger than me and you weren’t that drunk.”
“I just . . . I didn’t know you were angry. I just thought you wanted it rough. I thought it’d be fine at first. Don’t apologize again, Viggo. I know you’re sorry, you’ve said it enough and more than enough with your eyes. Just . . . come inside and take a shower with me.”
I smiled gently at him and followed him inside, kissing the back of his neck as he fitted the key into the lock. We did make it upstairs and into the bathroom, but never actually in the shower. He was pressed up against me, my back against the wall, not caring in the least that the light switch and towel rack were ill-positioned and digging into my back. His hands were everywhere touching with his traditional firmness but there was an undeniable gentleness there too.
“I thought you wanted to take a shower,” I breathed as he pushed up the front of my shirt and ran his hands over my stomach.
“Think I’m wet enough. These jeans are going to be a bitch to get out of.”
“I’ll help,” I muttered as he undid my pants. I was surprised when he dropped to his knees in front of me, my pants and boxers around my knees and his hand on my cock. Only once had Orlando took my penis into his mouth and it hadn’t been for long and I didn’t think it was going to happen again. Then, suddenly, I was glad for the towel rack and the doorframe because I certainly wouldn’t have remained standing when Orlando’s mouth closed around my soon to be completely erect cock.
“O God. . . . You don’t have to do this.”
Then I could breathe again. “I want to.”
Taking in a deep breath, I stared at his face and ran my hands through his damp hair. “Fuck,” I ground out, wondering how in the hell I was a poet.
But then, suddenly, it wasn’t enough. It was intimacy in a sort of selfless way because I thought for a moment that I actually understood Orlando. Him, his motivations, his thoughts. I think I know that he’s there on his knees in front of me because he does love me, all of me, enough to want to please me even though I know it doesn’t give him the same pleasure that I feel when I take him into his mouth. It’s a realization that makes me want to cry and I feel the ache constricting my heart. So strange to know that someone, that he loves me that much. He wouldn’t do it for any other reason. He does what he believes in and if his heart isn’t in it, I can always see.
“Stop. Stop,” is all I can breathe as I pull him up with shaking hands to his feet. And then my tears are on his face as well as I guide him backwards to the bed, my mouth and hands not leaving him for a moment. The strength of his hands was normally calming, but he was perhaps affected by the frantic need burning in me. Burning to touch, to be inside him.
Now we’re half on the bed, half off and his jeans are around his ankles and all he says is “hurry” as I reach for the lube even though one finger is already inside him. When I enter him my tears aren’t the only ones anymore and he swears I’m not hurting him and he holds my hands so tightly as I move inside him. It’s short and fast until he comes around me and I still, not wanting it to end and not like this.
Face-to-face, we almost always fuck face-to-face and he’s never said anything about it and I wonder if he wants to. But now . . . now . . . I want to see his face.
His jeans are still wet and I free him from those, his boxers, his shoes, and his socks and now he’s just Orlando. He’s already turning around, facing me, pulling off my shirt, but I don’t care about the jeans enough to move from him for a second.
His hands enveloped my sides and I thought for a moment that he was trying to stop me, but he was staring at me, his eyes examining every inch of me he could see. “I am,” he said suddenly and I raised my eyes to his instead of his hands on my body.
“Am what?” I asked still poised above him, arms braced on either side of his head.
“Attracted to you.”
I didn’t say anything, didn’t know what to say to that or the look in his eyes. This was so typical of Orlando, launchings into a conversation we had started a month before as if it was only a moment ago.
“I feel . . . safe with you. A way I never could with a woman, but wanted to, I think. Guess that’s my own fault. Never gave anyone else but you enough of myself. Your strength, the strength of your body, your voice, your conviction, everything. . . . At—at first, I wouldn’t let myself—fuck . . . I shouldn’t. . . . Sorry.”
“Don’t. Tell me, Lan.”
“No, it’s okay,” he insisted. With a smile, he reached between us to wrap his hand around my cock while bringing up his knees. “You have to be hurting.”
I grabbed his wrists, sat back and planted on hand on his hip to keep him down all at once, wiping away the tears on his face that are both mine and his. “What you have to say is more important.”
His expression was more serious now, introspective as if he wasn’t lying beneath me, legs spread, his cum drying on his stomach, his body open from me. “I wasn’t used to being with you. It didn’t feel right, you inside me because I wasn’t used to the . . . dynamic, I guess you could call it. That lack of control being beneath someone like that--it was more than just the sex. But now I—it’s different, it’s not like I thought. I’m safe with you, I feel safe with you. Sounds like a fucking porno and whatever the fuck, but being beneath you, held by you—it doesn’t make me uncomfortable anymore.”
“You’re always safe with me.”
He sat up to kiss me, his hands running up and down my arms and shoulders, fingertips tracing the contours of my triceps. “Thank you,” he said softly as if embarrassed. Embarrassed to even have to bring this up, that we would have to talk about this at all—we were both men after all.
“Don’t mention it,” I mollified running a hand over his perineum, sac, and his nearly soft cock.
He shivered and winced, capturing my hand and taking it from apparently still sensitive penis. “I’m not that young, not anymore.”
I laughed against his lips as I slowly pushed into him, Orlando raised his hips to meet mine, his eyes closing as I entered him. “Okay?” I breathed as my hips came flush against his. He breathed out shakily and I brushed back his long hair so I could look fully at his face. “Lando?” I prompted again when he just held onto my shoulders and didn’t open his eyes.
“Yeah, fine,” he said relaxing beneath me, his eyes falling open, looking up to me with something of adoration in his eyes. And he smiles in a way that can still steal my breath after all these years. He’s brushing away furrow of my brow with a hand, his eyes bright and shiny. “Don’t worry.”
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Date: 2006-09-10 05:45 pm (UTC)I hope the muse bites again before too long.
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Date: 2006-09-10 05:58 pm (UTC)This is so beautiful. I keep having to read the whole series again each time because of how great you're writing them.
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Date: 2006-09-10 07:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-11 03:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-11 08:06 am (UTC)thank you!
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Date: 2006-09-12 12:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-12 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-12 02:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-12 02:51 am (UTC)Cheers,
SL
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Date: 2006-09-12 02:54 am (UTC)Cheers,
SL
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Date: 2006-09-12 02:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-12 10:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-20 01:55 am (UTC)I was referring to a book from my 'other' fandom - and I'm certainly not up to being as articulate as it deserves, so please don't judge the caliber of the work by my comments here. One of the central motifs is the choice faced by the main character - to pursue a relationship with a sexually active gay man or involve himself in one that will almost certainly be platonic with someone who has yet to come to terms with his sexuality (and may never) . The vast majority of the fics based on the book pair him with the former, but it would be an interesting prompt, I think, to suggest exploring what the result would be if he had chosen the latter. Your series has made me think about that pairing more than once ; whether or not the character would be able to commit physically to the central character, and how the degree to which he embraced the sexual aspect of their relationship would effect the central character over time. This paragraph in particular struck me as worth discussion:
In your series, Orli is willing to act on Viggo's sexuality - one of the questions I thought might be interesting was if 'our' character ever be able to do the same; what chance for longevity would the relationship have if Orli had never told Viggo "it doesn't make me uncomfortable anymore" and how might that play out with the other characters inserted?
Aside from all that, I have to say again how well written and thoroughly enjoyable your work is. I hope you'll continue to share your talents with us!
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Date: 2006-10-12 07:45 pm (UTC)Orlando is willing to act on it. He loves Viggo even if he hasn't figured out just how. I didn't think that it was any different than a man and a woman "feeling each other out" so to speak. They could have had longevity as long as Orlando was honest with himself and continued to try because that's obviuosly what he's wanted since the beginning. It's a boost to Viggo, who I've made a very patient and understanding man in this story.
Again, thank you for all your feedback. I'm glad you've liked it thus far.