vigorli

Title: Silent Partners (1b/?)
Author: Louby

fictionbylouby
Pairing: V/O, Orlando/Christian Bale
Rating: NC-17
Summary: The causes and consequences of infidelity.
Warnings: A.U, mentions of het, (non con & violence in later chapters).
Disclaimer: I have no affiliations with any of the actors, only the plot is mine.
AN: Beta read by my amazing twin sister Pippi.
AN 2: This chapter is Viggo's 1st person POV.

Unlike Orli, I’ve never had a first hand experience with adultery. I mean, my parents divorced when I was 11, but that happens. People fall out of love just as easily as they fall into love. I know that better than anyone. I’ve seen the effects of course, I’ve lost count of how many friends have almost ruined their marriages all because of some drunken fling, and despite caring about them very much, I’ve judged them for it. Things change once you become a parent, too much is at stake if you get involved in something you can’t handle, and don’t even want deep down. I never thought I’d end up putting my kids through the same mess as all those men and women before me.

When I was in college studying Drama and Art I slept around, wasn’t really picky about gender. I was always careful and no one got hurt. I figured college was the best time to do any experimenting I wanted to do before joining the real world. The only person I had any sort of relationship with was my room mate and best friend Sean, that is if you can call a few months on and off a relationship, it certainly feels like it when you’re 18.

This all changed in my last semester before I graduated, when I met Christine. To me she was the perfect woman; striking, edgy, passionate and just a little bit crazy. She was just what I needed after three years of books. My parents didn’t approve, thought she was too unpredictable and wild for me to have any sort of future with her, and to be honest that attracted me to her even more. She brought out a side of me that I didn’t even know existed; for our six month anniversary I said that it would be really cool to fly to Las Vegas for the weekend, only when we got to the airport she confessed that she’d rang up the airline, cashed in the tickets and instead we were going to Brazil! Once we got there we fell so in love with the country that we ended up staying for months on end until immigration were threatening to forcibly deport us. Christine had (in her words) “the best idea to make our last night in Rio memorable – we should get married.” So we did. 6 hours before we were due at the airport, we tied the knot on the Copacabana under the stars, only a barman and a table dancer as our witnesses. My parents were not impressed.

It wasn’t until we got back to L.A that the harsh facts of reality hit us; we were living in a one bedroom apartment in a more than questionable part of town, I was getting no more than walk on parts in TV movies, and to top it all off, Christine had fallen pregnant. But it didn’t matter, I kept going for auditions (with varying degrees of success) whilst working odd jobs because that’s what we needed to do, so what’s the use in complaining? And at the end of the day we were both sickeningly happy, somehow I can’t imagine Maria having mutual feelings in such circumstances. By the time Henry was born I’d secured a few speaking parts with the promise of further auditions and I was able to move my young family into a much better area. As time went on my hard work finally paid off and by the time H was starting Kindergarten I was a well known name and face in Hollywood, so much so that I was established enough to take some much deserved time off to spend time with Henry and work on my painting. This gave Christine the opportunity to put some serious work in getting her band recognised. I suppose this was the beginning of the end.

When Christine announced that the band had signed a major recording contract and were to embark on a massive tour of America, I was not surprised in the slightest; Christine was immensely talented and had a grit and determination to rival my own. I would be lying however if I said I wasn’t immediately concerned. Christine was very independent and headstrong but at the same time she was very easily led. It wasn’t unusual for me to go weeks on end without hearing a word from her while she was on tour, and when I did she was usually drunk or stoned. I think Henry was starting to forget what his Mom looked like; as soon as the tour ended she was whisked off to a recording studio in New York with only a weekend home before she flew out to Berlin to start a European Arena tour. It wasn’t that I had issues with her being away from home; we’d dealt with that plenty of times before with the work I do. What I did have a problem with was her forgetting that as well as being a hugely successful singer she was also a wife and a mother. I guess a small part of me was terrified that she’d meet some new and exotic and forget about her life back in America. In the end I was right, she did leave me. But it wasn’t how I thought she would.

I was at the grocery store with Henry the day the phone call came. I was just loading the bags into the car, trying to keep hold of Henry who was attempting to run after a cat. Christine’s mother was on the other end; she’d just been informed that Christine had been taken to hospital in Liverpool with massive head and spinal injuries. According to the police she had fallen out a fifth floor window after taking a massive line of cocaine. She was pronounced dead on arrival. I dropped the phone and watched it smash into a million pieces, just like my heart.

To say that I was in pieces was an understatement; I didn’t only grieve for my dead wife, but for the loss of my child’s mother and the loss of my best friend. When Christine was flown back to America the police had advised us not to see the body, so I can only imagine what a mess she must have been in. I’d wake up every night screaming, vivid images of her mutilated and twisted face haunting my dreams. I was so full of hate; in fact I think I felt more hatred than grief. I hated her for leaving me alone, I hated her band mates for not looking after her, I hated Henry for looking at me with his mother’s eyes, not fully understanding where his Mommy had gone, but most of all I hated myself. I hated myself for letting her down, for not being enough for her and not recognising her pleas for help. The hatred I felt was slowly killing me. I knew I was losing control of things but I was powerless to stop it. In the end I got a call from social services, Henry’s teacher had noticed that he was losing weight, turning up to school in the same clothes he’d worn the previous day, not talking. I could barely find the strength to drag myself out of bed, where did people expect me to find the strength to take care of a child who’d just lost his mother? Even though the social worker only had Henry’s best interests at heart, the thought of him being taken away from me was enough for me to pull myself together. I booked me and H on the next flight to Denmark where we stayed with my father for almost 2 years. That’s when I met Maria.

Maria was a teacher at an exclusive private school for English speaking children. She was aware of our situation and made it her duty to keep an extra special eye on Henry and was always so concerned for how we were doing. In retrospect I suppose knew she was interested straight away, but at the time the seemingly accidental touches and recurring questions about my personal life appeared perfectly innocent. I guess I thought she was just being a good friend, and to be honest at the time I couldn’t have imagined being involved with anyone ever again so I just didn’t see it – unlike my father. It was getting to the stage that whenever I picked up Henry from school he would “casually” as if I’d seen Maria, how she was etc. These “casual” questions soon turned into “casual” comments such as “she’s such a nice girl from a good family” and “She’s so great with Henry” and eventually progressed to the downright blatant “she would make a great wife to someone like you.” I don’t know if he was trying to find another mother for Henry or if he was trying to keep me in Scandinavia, but I told him in no uncertain terms to stop his matchmaking and that no one would ever replace Christine. I never told him that in reality I was interested in Maria, like Christine she was beautiful, passionate and warm but at the same time she was nothing like Christine, Maria was considerate, safe and dependable, and after being married to someone like Christine I needed someone like that. But she still wasn’t her, and every time I even thought about something happening between the two of us I felt like I was betraying Christine and destroying her memory. That’s the main reason I moved back to L.A.

Despite my new feelings for Maria, I found it surprisingly easy to forget her once I got back into my old life. Of course my father would mention her whenever I spoke on the phone, but eventually he lost interest when he thought that I had. Then one evening out of the blue he told me that Maria had resigned her position in Denmark as she had been offered a deputy headship in a school just 20 miles from where I lived. “Good for her, but I don’t see how that concerns me” I’d said nonchalantly. However I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious. I managed to find her number and several times I’d got as far as dialling before quickly hanging up. Every time I looked at Henry I’d remember Christine and how in love I was, even when she went she off the rails I had never stopped loving her, not that she didn’t test me. That stopped me from waiting for her to pick up every time. Ironically it was Henry that made me bite the bullet and get in touch with her. I’d arrived early at school to collect him one day so I was waiting in the corridor for him to finish class. I could hear his teacher asking them all to make a wish. One little boy put his hand up and said “I wish I was David Beckham.” Another little girl put her hand up and said “I wish I could live in Disneyland.” Then Henry put his hand up. “I wish my Daddy could find me a new Mommy.” My heart broke for the second time in my life. Since Christine died I’d been doing everything, sacrificing my own happiness for Henry, while all this time I’d ignored what was right under my nose, missed what H needed most in the world. When Henry was born I made a promise to myself to do whatever was in my power to make him happy, so I did what I knew I had to do.

Maria and I started dating almost immediately, and oddly enough she wasn’t particularly shocked when I got in contact with her. “I knew we had something” she’d said “and I knew you just needed time to see it yourself.” After a few months she moved in, I don’t think either of us were ready if I’m honest, it was more out of convenience than anything else. But I was happy enough, not as happy as I was when Christine and I first got married, but happier than I was in the time before she died, and definitely happier than I ever thought I’d be again. But when she told me she was pregnant I felt none of the jubilation as when I found out Christine was expecting Henry. Years later I would find out that the conception was not the accident I thought it to be, I found an old doctor’s letter informing her that her birth control had been cancelled as requested, she’d trapped me. I hate using that term, it sounds as if I was scared of responsibility and commitment, but that’s exactly what she did. When I confronted her she told me that she knew I’d never love her like I loved Christine despite everything she’d done for me, so she needed to give me the only thing that Christine had given me that she hadn’t – a child.

At the time of course I knew none of this, and just took her word for it, after all no matter how much I love H, he was an accident himself, so I was in no doubt that I’d love Maria’s baby just as much. I’d been brought up with the belief that if you get a girl in trouble, you marry her (my father’s words not mine). So that’s what I did, even though right now I don’t know if I truly loved her. I must have at least thought I did at the time, because I would never have married her otherwise, pregnant or not. Whatever my feelings, I’ve never loved her like I love Christine or Orlando. Especially Orlando.

My main concern when I found out Maria was pregnant was for Henry. He was nearly 10 at the time so it’s a big deal to find out you’re going to have a little brother or sister when you’ve been an only child for so long. I was more worried over whether I’d be able to love Maria’s child as much as I loved Christine’s child. Whether we were actually ready to have a child together never entered my mind, Maria was always a natural mother while Christine just wasn’t. By the time Theo was born I came to realise that my fears were ridiculous, Henry’s however were not.

Despite Maria’s reassurance that she wouldn’t love Henry any less, her preference for her own child were obvious, and by the time Juliette was born three years after Theo, she acted like Henry were no more than a nuisance to her. He’d already lost mother and in a way he had lost another. It wasn’t just me who thought that, people who didn’t know us were shocked to hear that Maria had raised Henry, they presumed that we’d married only recently because of how she was with him. I remember a time when he was fourteen and Henry contracted a serious virus. I’d called 911 but the first thing Maria knew about it was when a neighbour said he’d seen me go with the kids in an ambulance. I’ve never seen such a look of utter relief when she found out that it was H that was seriously ill and not Theo or Juliette, she probably didn’t realise that she’d muttered “thank God it’s only Henry” under her breath.

It wasn’t just the way she was with Henry, that was only one of many changes I saw in her. As soon as she had children of her own she wanted to be super mom, in just a few months she’d turned into one of those women that we used to make fun of. It was like she’d a personality transplant. She was also insanely jealous of Christine, I mean who in their right mind would be jealous of a dead woman? As soon as Theo was born she completed gutted the house, got rid of anything Christine had bought or had even sat on, and then just after Juliette was born she announced that we needed to move. It was almost as if she was marking her territory like an animal. Whenever I tried to put my foot down she’d come out with her usual “after everything I’ve done for you and your child” speech. I remember I time when Henry was our child. It eventually got to the stage where we couldn’t even talk about her, Maria didn’t want “that sort of thing” tainting her family. The final straw came when I arrived home after being on location for 6 weeks to find that she’d got rid of all of Christine’s photos, including the framed one of her and Henry when he was a baby that H kept in his room. When I asked Henry what could possibly have provoked her to do such a vindictive thing, he told me it was because she’d overheard him on the phone to his girlfriend saying “she’s not my Mom.”

That night I packed me and Henry up and checked into a hotel. I was seriously at my wit’s end and had every intention of leaving Maria. After a week of hearing nothing she finally turned up at the hotel in tears with Theo and Juliette in tow for back up. She begged me to forgive her, showing more compassion than I’d seen in nearly 10 years. “Henry’s had to grow up without his mother” she’d sobbed. “Please don’t make our babies grow up without their father.” Maria had always been a connoisseur of emotional blackmail, but it was Henry that eventually convinced me to give it one more try. He explained that he’d be going off to college in a few years, and like it or not he didn’t need me like he used to. Not like Theo and Juliette still needed me.

Shortly after this incident I was offered a teaching post at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Although they idea of teaching young people my craft was very appealing, I wasn’t immediately convinced. It would mean relocating to London, and L.A held so many memories for me, both good and bad. It would also mean cutting down a lot on the number of movies I made, both for time reasons and living so far away from Hollywood. It was Maria that eventually convinced me, she has a very persuasive personality and made it sound like the best option all round. I don’t know if it was that she wanted the prestige of being a Professor’s wife, that she wanted to be rid of Christine’s shadow once and for all or just that she wanted to live in Europe again, but she was desperate to get to London.

I arrived in London just after Christmas with Henry, and Maria flew out a few weeks later with Theo and Juliette. For a while our relationship noticeably improved, it as strange working a 9 til 5 job for the first time in my life, but it was nice to be able to be home in time for dinner every night and spend more time with the kids. Living in London was new and exciting and we shared that as a family. I felt like I was finally in control of my life again and I was looking forward to some much deserved peace and quiet. In reality that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

The first time I saw Orli was in a voice class, and I was attracted to him immediately, much to my surprise as I hadn’t been attracted to another man since I was in college. He sat there looking at me, the passion for acting so evident on his beautiful face that seemed to glow; who wouldn’t be attracted to him? After a few randomly placed questions to fellow staff members, I learnt that he was renowned in the school for being one of the most promising students they’d taught in years, and that despite being married to the heir of the world famous Bale Haulage, he’d been accepted on a full scholarship, and that no one knew that he had money unless they explicitly asked. I also learnt that he was one of the most hardworking students but probably didn’t have as much faith in himself as he should have. Turned out that he wasn’t just a pretty face, he had the personality to match. Of course I couldn’t do anything about it, I was his teacher and I’d be fired and he’d most likely be expelled. And I was married.

That didn’t stop me making any excuse to spend time with him. If ever I needed a volunteer for anything he’d be the first person I’d ask, and he’d always agree. I even found myself compromising my professional ethics by casting him or putting him up for any role he showed interest in just to be close to him. I knew that he was attracted to me as well and as the responsible one I know that I should have tried to stop it, but I was powerless, and before I knew it I’d gone and created a position in the university after he’d graduated to keep him close to me. He was so depressed at home that he needed someone to look after him and that’s what I told myself I was doing, but deep down I knew I was in love with him. Things at home were back to where they were before we moved to England but this time I didn’t care. Henry had moved up north to Durham for university and I was making any excuse to avoid being at home, usually so I could be with Orlando. Just being close to him made me realise how fed up I was, something with which he could empathise.

I’d always sworn that’d I’d never act on my feelings towards him; too many people were going to get hurt. But then when Christian let him down yet again, on his birthday of all days, my emotions got the better of me and I kissed him – I couldn’t help it, he looked so heartbroken and I just wanted to make it better. I cursed myself internally as soon as I did it, the last thing I wanted to do was to lose his trust in me, and so I was amazed when I felt him return the kiss. The feeling of utter bliss however was short-lived. Just as I’d got him onto the desk, a student came to the door to hand in an essay. Orli took this as his cue to scarper, almost in tears. I couldn’t let him go back to Christian, couldn’t bear for him to be hurt yet again, and I suppose it just slipped out – I told him I loved him. Where I’d expected to see shock or anger I instead got a sad smile. “I love you too” he replied, and my heart leapt. “But it’s not enough.” And then he was gone. I went to run after him but stopped dead in my tracks, because he was right. It wasn’t enough.

I went straight home after that, thankful that I had the house to myself and didn’t have to deal with Maria, because the way I was feeling I was sure I’d have ended up blurting out what had happened. Instead I called Sean. We’d reignited our friendship from college when I told him I was moving to London, where he was currently working as a doctor. I told him everything and waited for his reaction. After telling me how stupid I’d been and how I was putting my family and career, he told me that he wasn’t all that surprised; he’d seen us together and knew how things were with Maria and knew that it was only a matter of time that something happened between Orlando and I. After a few hours of lectures he sent me to bed and went home, but I couldn’t sleep. I could still taste him on my lips and kept imagining I could smell him, I felt like I was going mad. I was also sick with worry. I knew I should never have let him run off like that considering the state he was in, but he needed time to think. I was just starting to drift off when I heard an erratic knocking on the door, and when I got downstairs I found Orli on the doorstop, shaking slightly and eyes red from crying. My initial thought was that Christian had hit him; there was nothing else that I could think of that would have caused him to be so distressed or to turn up unannounced in the middle of the night.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here” he’d said, and I breathed an audible sigh of relief when I realised he wasn’t hurt, not physically anyway. I told him it didn’t matter, that I was just glad he was here, and I pulled him into a fierce kiss, trying with all my might to make him stay. This time he didn’t run away, instead we went upstairs.

As I made love to him, I realised that everything that had happened in the past had been worth it, the turmoil of losing Christine, living in a pretty much loveless marriage, relocating to England. If all of that hadn’t happened then I wouldn’t have been lying there with who I knew at that moment was the love of my life, even my utter devotion to Christine paled in comparison. It never even crossed my mind that I was committing adultery, how could it be wrong when I loved him so much? It killed me the next day when Orli had to go back to Christian like nothing had happened, but we knew then that it was just a matter of time before we were together forever. When Maria returned I no longer tried to hide how miserable I was, and she knew something had changed, but I didn’t have the strength to pretend anymore. I was never cruel to her, in fact I was perfectly civil and tried my best to be kind, but I couldn’t live a lie for the rest of my life, not even for Theo and Juliette. Unlike Orli, the prospect of leaving Maria didn’t cause me any lost sleep. It sounds selfish, but she’d caused me so much misery that it almost felt like she deserved it. Still I did feel something, it wasn’t guilt, maybe it was sympathy.

Now all I can do is count the days until I’m free of her and can be with Orlando. If I had it my way I’d leave Maria tomorrow, but I know Orli needs time. He’s very much an innocent in many ways unlike my cynical, bitter self and part of me hates myself for dragging him into what sometimes feels like a sordid little affair, but then I look at him and see so much love in his eyes and I know it’s so much more than that, and if anyone is ready to say otherwise, then they’ve obviously never been in love, because this is the real deal. After all these years, all the heartache, two marriages and three children, I’ve finally found my soul mate. And it’s beautiful.