FIC: On Words, lotrips, Viggo/Orlando
TITLE: On Words
AUTHOR: veuki
RATING: PG-13
FANDOM: lotrips
PAIRING: Viggo Mortensen/Orlando Bloom
DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. I don't own anyone. This never happened.
SUMMARY: Viggo reflects.
When you look back, you're not really sure how it happened. You believe everything in life is in a way shattered, broken pieces of memory you have to put back together to remember. You refuse to believe that this is broken beyond belief. Nothing, you think, is ever beyond repair.
You remember the first day you met him. You arrived in New Zealand with a camera and your heart on your sleeve, despite your resolution to be stoic and calm. You walked into the training hall and everyone stopped and stared, sizing you up. You were the one who was replacing Stuart. You were the one who kicked him out. Butterflies' wings flapped against the insides of your stomach. It reminded you of the erratic strokes of your brush when you were painting something dark and uncontrolled and wild, and what you wouldn't have given to have been out of the lion's den and back amongst comforting familiarity.
He came up to you first, cotton undershirt sticking to his skin and curls plastered to his forehead. He stuck his hand out while everyone watched you both. "I'm Orlando. Well, Orli. Most people just call me Elf-boy." He laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling, tongue flickstroking over his teeth. "You must be the new Aragorn. I'm Legolas."
"Legolas," you repeated with perfect pronunciation, and he blinked in pleased surprise. You read the appendices on Tolkien's languages first, fascinated by the structure and beautiful complexity of his words. That's nothing new, Dad, Henry would say if he'd been on the plane with you, watching you flip through the back of the dog-eared paperback, you've always had a weird sort of obsession with words. And so you have, you guess. It's one of those things you don't think about unless someone brings it up.
Bob Anderson set to work with you right away, and when he needed to go help someone else Orlando was your training partner. He was quite good with his training knives. The first day you fought, he trapped your sword between the blades of his knives, spun his arms, and your sword went flying out of your grasp and clattering to the floor. He pumped his fists in triumph, joy so palpable that you wondered what it would look like on a canvas, and you resolved to find out. You smiled and your thoughts traveled across an ocean during lunch.
He had trouble with his back, although he didn't like to let the others know. Sometimes, you'd be training and he'd double over in pain. He'd remain hunched and then straighten up slowly, saying that he was tired and needed to catch a breather. You had motioned for him to turn around and kneaded the knot wedged between muscle and bone with the tips of your fingers, pressing and soothing and prodding. He'd dropped his head between gradually relaxing shoulders, sighing quietly. Your eyes moved to the long scar at the small of his back and you almost moved to touch that too, before you remembered who you were.
You hit the knife one of the stuntmen had thrown at you on the first try, but tried to do it again and the ability had left you. Frustrated, you stayed at the gym and asked one of the stuntmen to do nothing but throw the rubber training knife at your sword from a distance. You couldn't remember how many times he threw it, but after a while weariness started to paint thick lines across his forehead. You told him to go home. Orlando came out of one of the locker rooms, freshly showered and zipping up his track jacket and saw your frustration. He'd promptly thrown his bag to the side and offered to help. You told him it was okay, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. At two in the morning, you were hitting the knife seven times out of ten. He smiled and slapped you encouragingly on the back. You drove him to his flat and he fell asleep on the way there.
When you pulled up to his apartment building, you turned off the ignition and looked at him. His hand was curled beneath his cheek, dark hair spilling haphazardly across his eyes and carved cheekbones. There was a small smile that seemed to light his face and you couldn't stop looking at it, because you'd never seen anything quite like it. You called yourself a man of words, but no words seemed quite befitting for Orlando's smile. You thought that maybe, words for it would come to you later. You considered taking a picture (your camera was slung around your neck, as always), but decided against it and touched his shoulder. His eyes snapped open and you wondered if he'd been awake the entire time.
You came into one of the make-up trailers while the sun was just beginning to peer over the horizon and found him hunched over the mirror trying to put in Legolas' contact lenses. The light from outside combined with the bulbs attached to the mirror bathed the trailer in a weird golden-red glow. You stalked to his chair. He watched you in the mirror and his hands fell to his lap. His eyes moved to yours in the reflection of the mirror, his body absolutely still. "Tilt your head," you said softly, and he did as you asked without question, a muscle in his jaw working. You took his chin with roughened fingers and moved it down with a gentle application of pressure. He swallowed and dropped his eyes. "Put your contact lenses in, Orli. Pretend I'm not here." He hesitated only a minute before wetting his fingers with saline and bowing his head, fingers splaying across his skin. Shadow enveloped the right side of his face, a dark socket replacing his eye through your camera lens. You snapped the picture. Click.
That night in your makeshift darkroom, you delevoped the picture and watched it appear, blurred and waved beneath the developer. You carefully extracted the photograph from the tub with a pair of toast tongs, titled it and shook it gently. You clipped the photo and hung it to dry, and when it was done you took it down and studied it. It wasn't your best piece of work, but it was your favorite and you found yourself taking it from your black folder and looking at it when everything was quiet. Legolas, you wrote at the right-hand corner of the picture, inked the letters carefully, but when you looked at it all you saw was Orli. Later, you gave him a copy. He took it and stowed it away, and gave you the brilliant smile that you wouldn't admit you desperately hoped to receive. The ends justify the means, you told yourself.
You had everyone over for dinner, including Orlando. Henry asked to go out for a walk with Orlando and Dom and begged you to say yes. "I'm wearing a jacket, Dad. Please?" You smiled and said, "of course," and they'd vanished before you had time to really say goodbye. You knew they'd return, though. Dom came back first, shivering. "It's fuckin' cold out there. The water's freezing!" You looked down and saw the bottoms of his pants dripping with water, threads soaked and trailing like snakes over the carpet. You pulled back the curtains and saw Henry with his pant legs rolled up around his knees, tentatively walking on the bank of the creek near your house. Orli was in the creek, jumping across the flat rocks peeking out of the surface of water in that graceful Elven way you knew altogether too well. You'd opened up the window and called, "Havo dad, Orli, before you hurt yourself." You knew he wouldn't, though. because when Orli slipped into Elf-mode, as people were fond of calling it, he was invincible, untouchable. Everyone sitting contentedly at the table had burst into laughter, and if you squinted you thought you could see Orli's middle finger like a pale beacon against the night.
When Pirates of the Caribbean came out, Henry was sleeping over a friend's house. The house seemed startingly empty. It rained that Monday night. The air was surprisingly cold and sharp, a slap the color of ice blue against your face. You wore a hooded sweatshirt that cast a blackened shadow across your eyes and went for a jog. You ran, listened to the sound of your sneakers slapping dully against the pavement and the roar of blood in your ears. Unexpectedly, you found yourself in front of the local cinema and slowed to a walk, debating. You made your decision and went inside, bought a ticket and slipped quietly into the darkened theater just as Keira Knightley was examining her pirate medallion. You sat in an empty row in the back and you were the last one to leave the theater. It was uplifting and swashbuckling and everything Orlando had said it would be in interviews, but you found yourself with an ache in your chest that stayed no matter how you tried to get rid of it.
Re-shoots for Return of the King finished. Pete gave you a copy of the soundtrack as per your request before you left with everyone else on the bus to the private jet. You slipped it into your battered Walkman on the way there and played track nineteen while reading the glossy booklet containing the lyrics and credits. When Annie Lennox sang, we have come now to the end, you found yourself slipping away and into your own thoughts, and realized that the CD had stopped playing. You replayed the track and looked over at Orlando, whose head rested against Billy's as he dozed. He opened his eyes and saw you watching him, waved sleepily at you and smiled. You smiled back, but it hurt and you didn't understand why.
After you finished filming Hidalgo, you found yourself looking at "Married to Nature" and wanted to paint something similiar to it. You traced your fingers over the spiked curls of paint and wanted to create something that captured sharp clarity again. You fumbled with stained bottles of color and brought out your brushes, but everything you painted had dark eyes and a beauty that you still couldn't describe with words or art. That frustrated you. You found yourself listening to the Return of the King soundtrack and replaying track nineteen, trying to find something to fill the gaping hole that was eating away at your insides.
Somewhere along the road, Orlando stopped mentioning you in interviews. Edward Norton, he said, Johnny Depp. You didn't feel excluded, but wondered if he'd forgotten you entirely. Andúril was lying in your living room, and you picked it up and practiced with it long into the evening. You didn't bother trying to explain how you felt to anyone else, because you knew it would sound ridiculous no matter how you put it. You wondered if someone threw a knife at you if you would still be able to hit it. You didn't know and that frightened you.
Billy called you when he was in the area, doing a radio show or a promotion or other: you can't remember now. You invited him over. Henry was glad to see him again, and you ordered cheesesteaks and watched The Italian Job in the living room. When the movie finished, Henry bade you both good night and went to his room. You refilled both your wine glasses and asked about Orlando. Billy smiled almost sadly and said he hadn't seen much of him, and squeezed your shoulder. You didn't look at Billy, because his sympathy stung. You smiled and said you were fine, and changed the subject. You felt as though you'd been waiting for the longest time for the other shoe to drop, for the wound to heal, and you knew it would eventually but you weren't sure when that day would actually come.
You didn't exactly remember what you were looking for when you turned on the computer in the den and connected to the Internet, but you found pictures of him and Kate Bosworth. You didn't need to look long to know it was him: even with the beanie and curls and sunglasses, you'd spent enough time with him to recognize him a mile away. You shut the computer down and told yourself you were happy for him. A part of you wondered if that was really true, but you told yourself, it has to be. The ache settled cold and squeezing and quiet in the back of your throat, but you swallowed and it faded, eventually.
Orlando is in Los Angeles when he calls you on the mobile he swore he would never get, his discarded pendants at his flat in England. He curls his fingers around the back of his neck where his chains once were and mutters, "c'mon, Viggo, c'mon, pick up, pick up," his voice scratchy and raw. "Pick up," even on the twenty-ninth ring, desperation rising.
But you're not home, and so you don't pick up.
He lets it ring.
AUTHOR: veuki
RATING: PG-13
FANDOM: lotrips
PAIRING: Viggo Mortensen/Orlando Bloom
DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. I don't own anyone. This never happened.
SUMMARY: Viggo reflects.
When you look back, you're not really sure how it happened. You believe everything in life is in a way shattered, broken pieces of memory you have to put back together to remember. You refuse to believe that this is broken beyond belief. Nothing, you think, is ever beyond repair.
You remember the first day you met him. You arrived in New Zealand with a camera and your heart on your sleeve, despite your resolution to be stoic and calm. You walked into the training hall and everyone stopped and stared, sizing you up. You were the one who was replacing Stuart. You were the one who kicked him out. Butterflies' wings flapped against the insides of your stomach. It reminded you of the erratic strokes of your brush when you were painting something dark and uncontrolled and wild, and what you wouldn't have given to have been out of the lion's den and back amongst comforting familiarity.
He came up to you first, cotton undershirt sticking to his skin and curls plastered to his forehead. He stuck his hand out while everyone watched you both. "I'm Orlando. Well, Orli. Most people just call me Elf-boy." He laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling, tongue flickstroking over his teeth. "You must be the new Aragorn. I'm Legolas."
"Legolas," you repeated with perfect pronunciation, and he blinked in pleased surprise. You read the appendices on Tolkien's languages first, fascinated by the structure and beautiful complexity of his words. That's nothing new, Dad, Henry would say if he'd been on the plane with you, watching you flip through the back of the dog-eared paperback, you've always had a weird sort of obsession with words. And so you have, you guess. It's one of those things you don't think about unless someone brings it up.
Bob Anderson set to work with you right away, and when he needed to go help someone else Orlando was your training partner. He was quite good with his training knives. The first day you fought, he trapped your sword between the blades of his knives, spun his arms, and your sword went flying out of your grasp and clattering to the floor. He pumped his fists in triumph, joy so palpable that you wondered what it would look like on a canvas, and you resolved to find out. You smiled and your thoughts traveled across an ocean during lunch.
He had trouble with his back, although he didn't like to let the others know. Sometimes, you'd be training and he'd double over in pain. He'd remain hunched and then straighten up slowly, saying that he was tired and needed to catch a breather. You had motioned for him to turn around and kneaded the knot wedged between muscle and bone with the tips of your fingers, pressing and soothing and prodding. He'd dropped his head between gradually relaxing shoulders, sighing quietly. Your eyes moved to the long scar at the small of his back and you almost moved to touch that too, before you remembered who you were.
You hit the knife one of the stuntmen had thrown at you on the first try, but tried to do it again and the ability had left you. Frustrated, you stayed at the gym and asked one of the stuntmen to do nothing but throw the rubber training knife at your sword from a distance. You couldn't remember how many times he threw it, but after a while weariness started to paint thick lines across his forehead. You told him to go home. Orlando came out of one of the locker rooms, freshly showered and zipping up his track jacket and saw your frustration. He'd promptly thrown his bag to the side and offered to help. You told him it was okay, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. At two in the morning, you were hitting the knife seven times out of ten. He smiled and slapped you encouragingly on the back. You drove him to his flat and he fell asleep on the way there.
When you pulled up to his apartment building, you turned off the ignition and looked at him. His hand was curled beneath his cheek, dark hair spilling haphazardly across his eyes and carved cheekbones. There was a small smile that seemed to light his face and you couldn't stop looking at it, because you'd never seen anything quite like it. You called yourself a man of words, but no words seemed quite befitting for Orlando's smile. You thought that maybe, words for it would come to you later. You considered taking a picture (your camera was slung around your neck, as always), but decided against it and touched his shoulder. His eyes snapped open and you wondered if he'd been awake the entire time.
You came into one of the make-up trailers while the sun was just beginning to peer over the horizon and found him hunched over the mirror trying to put in Legolas' contact lenses. The light from outside combined with the bulbs attached to the mirror bathed the trailer in a weird golden-red glow. You stalked to his chair. He watched you in the mirror and his hands fell to his lap. His eyes moved to yours in the reflection of the mirror, his body absolutely still. "Tilt your head," you said softly, and he did as you asked without question, a muscle in his jaw working. You took his chin with roughened fingers and moved it down with a gentle application of pressure. He swallowed and dropped his eyes. "Put your contact lenses in, Orli. Pretend I'm not here." He hesitated only a minute before wetting his fingers with saline and bowing his head, fingers splaying across his skin. Shadow enveloped the right side of his face, a dark socket replacing his eye through your camera lens. You snapped the picture. Click.
That night in your makeshift darkroom, you delevoped the picture and watched it appear, blurred and waved beneath the developer. You carefully extracted the photograph from the tub with a pair of toast tongs, titled it and shook it gently. You clipped the photo and hung it to dry, and when it was done you took it down and studied it. It wasn't your best piece of work, but it was your favorite and you found yourself taking it from your black folder and looking at it when everything was quiet. Legolas, you wrote at the right-hand corner of the picture, inked the letters carefully, but when you looked at it all you saw was Orli. Later, you gave him a copy. He took it and stowed it away, and gave you the brilliant smile that you wouldn't admit you desperately hoped to receive. The ends justify the means, you told yourself.
You had everyone over for dinner, including Orlando. Henry asked to go out for a walk with Orlando and Dom and begged you to say yes. "I'm wearing a jacket, Dad. Please?" You smiled and said, "of course," and they'd vanished before you had time to really say goodbye. You knew they'd return, though. Dom came back first, shivering. "It's fuckin' cold out there. The water's freezing!" You looked down and saw the bottoms of his pants dripping with water, threads soaked and trailing like snakes over the carpet. You pulled back the curtains and saw Henry with his pant legs rolled up around his knees, tentatively walking on the bank of the creek near your house. Orli was in the creek, jumping across the flat rocks peeking out of the surface of water in that graceful Elven way you knew altogether too well. You'd opened up the window and called, "Havo dad, Orli, before you hurt yourself." You knew he wouldn't, though. because when Orli slipped into Elf-mode, as people were fond of calling it, he was invincible, untouchable. Everyone sitting contentedly at the table had burst into laughter, and if you squinted you thought you could see Orli's middle finger like a pale beacon against the night.
When Pirates of the Caribbean came out, Henry was sleeping over a friend's house. The house seemed startingly empty. It rained that Monday night. The air was surprisingly cold and sharp, a slap the color of ice blue against your face. You wore a hooded sweatshirt that cast a blackened shadow across your eyes and went for a jog. You ran, listened to the sound of your sneakers slapping dully against the pavement and the roar of blood in your ears. Unexpectedly, you found yourself in front of the local cinema and slowed to a walk, debating. You made your decision and went inside, bought a ticket and slipped quietly into the darkened theater just as Keira Knightley was examining her pirate medallion. You sat in an empty row in the back and you were the last one to leave the theater. It was uplifting and swashbuckling and everything Orlando had said it would be in interviews, but you found yourself with an ache in your chest that stayed no matter how you tried to get rid of it.
Re-shoots for Return of the King finished. Pete gave you a copy of the soundtrack as per your request before you left with everyone else on the bus to the private jet. You slipped it into your battered Walkman on the way there and played track nineteen while reading the glossy booklet containing the lyrics and credits. When Annie Lennox sang, we have come now to the end, you found yourself slipping away and into your own thoughts, and realized that the CD had stopped playing. You replayed the track and looked over at Orlando, whose head rested against Billy's as he dozed. He opened his eyes and saw you watching him, waved sleepily at you and smiled. You smiled back, but it hurt and you didn't understand why.
After you finished filming Hidalgo, you found yourself looking at "Married to Nature" and wanted to paint something similiar to it. You traced your fingers over the spiked curls of paint and wanted to create something that captured sharp clarity again. You fumbled with stained bottles of color and brought out your brushes, but everything you painted had dark eyes and a beauty that you still couldn't describe with words or art. That frustrated you. You found yourself listening to the Return of the King soundtrack and replaying track nineteen, trying to find something to fill the gaping hole that was eating away at your insides.
Somewhere along the road, Orlando stopped mentioning you in interviews. Edward Norton, he said, Johnny Depp. You didn't feel excluded, but wondered if he'd forgotten you entirely. Andúril was lying in your living room, and you picked it up and practiced with it long into the evening. You didn't bother trying to explain how you felt to anyone else, because you knew it would sound ridiculous no matter how you put it. You wondered if someone threw a knife at you if you would still be able to hit it. You didn't know and that frightened you.
Billy called you when he was in the area, doing a radio show or a promotion or other: you can't remember now. You invited him over. Henry was glad to see him again, and you ordered cheesesteaks and watched The Italian Job in the living room. When the movie finished, Henry bade you both good night and went to his room. You refilled both your wine glasses and asked about Orlando. Billy smiled almost sadly and said he hadn't seen much of him, and squeezed your shoulder. You didn't look at Billy, because his sympathy stung. You smiled and said you were fine, and changed the subject. You felt as though you'd been waiting for the longest time for the other shoe to drop, for the wound to heal, and you knew it would eventually but you weren't sure when that day would actually come.
You didn't exactly remember what you were looking for when you turned on the computer in the den and connected to the Internet, but you found pictures of him and Kate Bosworth. You didn't need to look long to know it was him: even with the beanie and curls and sunglasses, you'd spent enough time with him to recognize him a mile away. You shut the computer down and told yourself you were happy for him. A part of you wondered if that was really true, but you told yourself, it has to be. The ache settled cold and squeezing and quiet in the back of your throat, but you swallowed and it faded, eventually.
Orlando is in Los Angeles when he calls you on the mobile he swore he would never get, his discarded pendants at his flat in England. He curls his fingers around the back of his neck where his chains once were and mutters, "c'mon, Viggo, c'mon, pick up, pick up," his voice scratchy and raw. "Pick up," even on the twenty-ninth ring, desperation rising.
But you're not home, and so you don't pick up.
He lets it ring.