the rolling stones live in my ear.
Title: Dying all the Time
Pairing: Viggo Mortensen/Orlando Bloom
Fandom: LOTR RPS
Rating: PG-13ish
Summary: Canada & Viggo & Orlando & Autumn & Good Times, only Bad.
A/N: Livejournal fucking hates me. Also, this was for the autumn challenge at contrelamontre.
He doesn't like old times, at least not the way they mean it. He means to remember and they mean to mourn, and that is the difference between them. There are enough problems with now, anyway: realizing it, liking it, living it. Let's put old times in a box of its own, separate, so it won't taint anything else, shall we?
Here is the other thing: the person who said old times is twenty-seven. Do they, the under-thirty, actually know anything about old times, Viggo wonders? Or was he joking? He can't keep up with them. He hears, he listens. That's all.
:::
"We should, you know," he whines. "Christ, Vig, it's been a millennium."
"Hyperbole," Viggo says, automatically.
You can hear it when Orlando smiles. "What'd you say?"
"Hyperbole," he repeats, and he clarifies: "You said it's been a millennium, so that's, ah, hyperbole. I can't help it, lately. Couple weeks ago Henry came home with some English sheet, metaphor and simile and hyperbole, you know, and ever since then I've been....Well."
"That's amazing."
"No, it isn't."
"You should tutor me."
"Oh?" Viggo is squeezing the phone.
:::
Orlando wants old times so he says all right.
Here you are here I am, that's what it was, so they decided it was for the best. Hello, Canada. And when they meet, Orlando puts his arms around him and gives him a dry kiss on the corner of his mouth, because that's just what Orlando does.
He says, "Let's not risk it, okay?" and they duck into a shop. But then he says, "God, isn't it-?" And Orlando makes a vague gesture to the world outside, framed in a wide window: the near palatial splendor of autumn in a city, with trees like celebratory banners, raining confetti leaves. The sky is bluer in autumn than summer. "God," Orlando sighs again, and he's right: sometimes September makes him think God exists. But they turn away. Together they walk into the heart of the coffee shop, this vulnerable little cocoon. A seat away from windows because that is safer.
The little round table thrills him. So do the wrought-iron chairs with the burgundy padding, and the salt and pepper shakers with the painted folk art, and the little lamp, and the swirling words on the wall. Orlando smiles at Viggo. He smiles at everything. He smiles at Viggo. They sit down.
Orlando fidgets; he sits on his hands and looks like an impatient child with a secret, and Viggo thinks there is a question hanging in the air. He says: "Don't you dare ask me what I've been up to."
Orlando laughs.
:::
Sometimes he wonders what they are in each other's languages.
In Viggo's, Orlando is a two-hour best friend.
This is a two-hour best friend:
Your flight is delayed and the woman in front of you in line - airport giftshop - has a pretty smile, and you haven't spoken to anyone in forty-eight hours, so you show her the book you're about to buy. A guide to New York Montreal Bismarck Chicago? she says, and she says, But aren't you just leaving? and you say yes, and you laugh. She laughs. And she tells you about her husband's operation and you tell her not just the name of your son, and his age, but who he is. You realize: this is a counterpart, a comrade, and she is your best friend for two hours until you leave and you never see her again. You try to remember her name and you can't.
This is Orlando, essentially. It should not have happened but someone wanted them to be Aragorn and Legolas, so they were. There was providence, and magnetic latch, and a separation like amputation when it was over. Except two-hour best friends last two hours and Orlando was eighteen months. That's 6,564 times longer. That's probably 6,564 times worse. He did the math one day so he knows.
:::
Here is what Orlando is doing: everything.
This boy talks smooth and everything reminds him of everything: Viggo's wearing this necklace and it's like this bracelet he's wearing. He got it from he forgets where but yeah, that's alabaster shell, and moss agate, and he's always adding a new piece like a girl's charm bracelet. Ha.
"One fell out," Viggo says, and he means there's a bit of copper wire that used to hold some little trinket, but it's empty now. He holds the bracelet away from the skin of Orlando's wrist, carefully, because we can't touch. Orlando says yeah, rock fell out the other day, it was this pink thing, looked like crystal but like with bits of sugar or something but he can't find it. Oh well.
I'm fucking famished, he says, and then laughs a bit and puts his hand over his mouth because oh shit, there's this little girl a few tables away. He says it's like this one time he and Kate were out and almost the exact same thing happened oh god he was so embarrassed. Poor kid. Kids! Plural.
"She'll survive. She's young," Viggo says.
"D'you think so?" Orlando says, mock serious. And then he asks about Viggo's poems, and Henry, of course, and Christ it's beautiful here, Canada, yeah, and there's no real transition in anything he says but it feels natural. It feels like summer becoming autumn becoming winter, without any of them really noticing. And they never question it, either. It just happens.
Viggo decides he is still a little bit in love with Orlando, but that's okay. So is everyone.
:::
"Out there," Orlando says, and he means out there. Outside. They pay the bill and leave their soupy-foamy drinks behind and Orlando says that was disgusting in the best way possible. Can you get stoned on caffeine? And then they are out of the cocoon and into the light, and Viggo likes autumn in a city. The air is crisp like steel but you feel clean and alive, like growing things, even when everything around you is dying.
Orlando says, "I've got to go, soon. Back to my hotel." But he's got a solution and Viggo walks him back, braving back alleys and all so they only get stopped a few times. There are a hundred million people but everyone has their own destination, and it does not involve them.
It makes him smile, sometimes.
And Orlando smiles too, but wistful, when Viggo says he really has to be on his way, this was good, this was great, but he's got to go. Orlando says, "God, what's wrong with us?" It wasn't supposed to happen like this, they were all going to keep in touch. He says he thought it would be easier. Viggo didn't but he doesn't say so.
Orlando says, "We've got to do this more, Vig, I want to.” And he kisses Viggo on the mouth, lips dry and tasting like dust and sun and coffee, and Viggo wonders what he means by it. Then he lets Orlando go and he goes, shyly.
It was better then, he thinks. In some ways.
Pairing: Viggo Mortensen/Orlando Bloom
Fandom: LOTR RPS
Rating: PG-13ish
Summary: Canada & Viggo & Orlando & Autumn & Good Times, only Bad.
A/N: Livejournal fucking hates me. Also, this was for the autumn challenge at contrelamontre.
He doesn't like old times, at least not the way they mean it. He means to remember and they mean to mourn, and that is the difference between them. There are enough problems with now, anyway: realizing it, liking it, living it. Let's put old times in a box of its own, separate, so it won't taint anything else, shall we?
Here is the other thing: the person who said old times is twenty-seven. Do they, the under-thirty, actually know anything about old times, Viggo wonders? Or was he joking? He can't keep up with them. He hears, he listens. That's all.
:::
"We should, you know," he whines. "Christ, Vig, it's been a millennium."
"Hyperbole," Viggo says, automatically.
You can hear it when Orlando smiles. "What'd you say?"
"Hyperbole," he repeats, and he clarifies: "You said it's been a millennium, so that's, ah, hyperbole. I can't help it, lately. Couple weeks ago Henry came home with some English sheet, metaphor and simile and hyperbole, you know, and ever since then I've been....Well."
"That's amazing."
"No, it isn't."
"You should tutor me."
"Oh?" Viggo is squeezing the phone.
:::
Orlando wants old times so he says all right.
Here you are here I am, that's what it was, so they decided it was for the best. Hello, Canada. And when they meet, Orlando puts his arms around him and gives him a dry kiss on the corner of his mouth, because that's just what Orlando does.
He says, "Let's not risk it, okay?" and they duck into a shop. But then he says, "God, isn't it-?" And Orlando makes a vague gesture to the world outside, framed in a wide window: the near palatial splendor of autumn in a city, with trees like celebratory banners, raining confetti leaves. The sky is bluer in autumn than summer. "God," Orlando sighs again, and he's right: sometimes September makes him think God exists. But they turn away. Together they walk into the heart of the coffee shop, this vulnerable little cocoon. A seat away from windows because that is safer.
The little round table thrills him. So do the wrought-iron chairs with the burgundy padding, and the salt and pepper shakers with the painted folk art, and the little lamp, and the swirling words on the wall. Orlando smiles at Viggo. He smiles at everything. He smiles at Viggo. They sit down.
Orlando fidgets; he sits on his hands and looks like an impatient child with a secret, and Viggo thinks there is a question hanging in the air. He says: "Don't you dare ask me what I've been up to."
Orlando laughs.
:::
Sometimes he wonders what they are in each other's languages.
In Viggo's, Orlando is a two-hour best friend.
This is a two-hour best friend:
Your flight is delayed and the woman in front of you in line - airport giftshop - has a pretty smile, and you haven't spoken to anyone in forty-eight hours, so you show her the book you're about to buy. A guide to New York Montreal Bismarck Chicago? she says, and she says, But aren't you just leaving? and you say yes, and you laugh. She laughs. And she tells you about her husband's operation and you tell her not just the name of your son, and his age, but who he is. You realize: this is a counterpart, a comrade, and she is your best friend for two hours until you leave and you never see her again. You try to remember her name and you can't.
This is Orlando, essentially. It should not have happened but someone wanted them to be Aragorn and Legolas, so they were. There was providence, and magnetic latch, and a separation like amputation when it was over. Except two-hour best friends last two hours and Orlando was eighteen months. That's 6,564 times longer. That's probably 6,564 times worse. He did the math one day so he knows.
:::
Here is what Orlando is doing: everything.
This boy talks smooth and everything reminds him of everything: Viggo's wearing this necklace and it's like this bracelet he's wearing. He got it from he forgets where but yeah, that's alabaster shell, and moss agate, and he's always adding a new piece like a girl's charm bracelet. Ha.
"One fell out," Viggo says, and he means there's a bit of copper wire that used to hold some little trinket, but it's empty now. He holds the bracelet away from the skin of Orlando's wrist, carefully, because we can't touch. Orlando says yeah, rock fell out the other day, it was this pink thing, looked like crystal but like with bits of sugar or something but he can't find it. Oh well.
I'm fucking famished, he says, and then laughs a bit and puts his hand over his mouth because oh shit, there's this little girl a few tables away. He says it's like this one time he and Kate were out and almost the exact same thing happened oh god he was so embarrassed. Poor kid. Kids! Plural.
"She'll survive. She's young," Viggo says.
"D'you think so?" Orlando says, mock serious. And then he asks about Viggo's poems, and Henry, of course, and Christ it's beautiful here, Canada, yeah, and there's no real transition in anything he says but it feels natural. It feels like summer becoming autumn becoming winter, without any of them really noticing. And they never question it, either. It just happens.
Viggo decides he is still a little bit in love with Orlando, but that's okay. So is everyone.
:::
"Out there," Orlando says, and he means out there. Outside. They pay the bill and leave their soupy-foamy drinks behind and Orlando says that was disgusting in the best way possible. Can you get stoned on caffeine? And then they are out of the cocoon and into the light, and Viggo likes autumn in a city. The air is crisp like steel but you feel clean and alive, like growing things, even when everything around you is dying.
Orlando says, "I've got to go, soon. Back to my hotel." But he's got a solution and Viggo walks him back, braving back alleys and all so they only get stopped a few times. There are a hundred million people but everyone has their own destination, and it does not involve them.
It makes him smile, sometimes.
And Orlando smiles too, but wistful, when Viggo says he really has to be on his way, this was good, this was great, but he's got to go. Orlando says, "God, what's wrong with us?" It wasn't supposed to happen like this, they were all going to keep in touch. He says he thought it would be easier. Viggo didn't but he doesn't say so.
Orlando says, "We've got to do this more, Vig, I want to.” And he kisses Viggo on the mouth, lips dry and tasting like dust and sun and coffee, and Viggo wonders what he means by it. Then he lets Orlando go and he goes, shyly.
It was better then, he thinks. In some ways.