A Tale Of Blood

Posted: September 2002
Type: RPS
Author: Cinzia
Characters: Sean. B/Viggo
Rating: PG
Summary: A tale is told.
Warnings: None.
Disclaimer: Don't know 'em, this is NOT true, I made it up. It NEVER happened.
Notes: Many thanks to Gloria Mundi for beta and support.

*****

Viggo touches the scar on his upper lip, visible under his stubble. Hair grows white around it, not much, but just enough that you notice it, if you're looking for it.

Sean is looking. Has been for a while, actually. Scars are funny that way, he muses: sometimes you see them, sometimes you don't. The more familiar you are with someone, the less you'll keep noticing their scars. But Sean isn't familiar with Viggo: quite the opposite, in fact. Viggo has just flown in from L.A., not two weeks before, and they haven't had that many chances to talk yet, to know each other. Sean hears Viggo is pretty busy with his fencing and dialogue lessons, so most of the time he's not really around.

They're both at Sean's place this evening, though, and Sean finds it a little peculiar that Viggo is sitting there now, in Sean's living room, wearing his costume: Aragorn is sitting in Sean's living room, and if Sean stops and thinks about it, it feels a bit odd, even though he knows Viggo is doing this Aragorn-thing all the time, trying to make up for the time he's lost.

And this is actually what Sean was aiming for, inviting Viggo over for dinner: making up for the time they all lost when Stuart went away. Getting to know his new co-star, as he knows everyone else in the Fellowship.

Yet Viggo seems a little... difficult is not the word Sean wants, but no other comes to mind: they're spending a whole evening together, they're talking and even joking about things, everyday things--pointless things. Viggo sits there in his Aragorn costume and Sean feels out of sorts, somehow, because it should be as easy to get to know this man as it's been with all the others.

Yet it's not, and he can't quite begin to wrap his mind around the whys and wherefores of it, and they just sit there and talk, and nothing is really said.

Nothing real.

Then Viggo is touching his scar, and noticing Sean looking at him touching the scar. Sean thinks he should laugh it off now, maybe make a joke. He wants to ask about the scar, though. He thinks Aragorn would have a bloody tale to tell about it, a tale of blood--of killing and slaying and fighting and such. A manly tale for a manly scar.

"I was seventeen," Viggo says, and trace the white line with his thumbnail, slowly following the mark curving into the skin. It's a deep mark. Whatever caused it cut deep into the flesh. All those years ago.

Sean is trying to picture a seventeen year old Viggo in his mind, and sees a skinny boy with unruly blond hair and blood on his face, blood on the front of his shirt.

Viggo is smiling. He looks at Sean and smiles, his hand falling down on his lap, and then the tip of Viggo's tongue darts out, licking where his thumb has just been, then retreats. Viggo smiles some more, still looking Sean in the eye.

"New York. The seventies, you know?" Viggo says, and Sean knows all right. "People used to be crazy," Viggo goes on. "I was, too. Did crazy things. Just for the hell of it," he says, "and for money, sometimes."

Sean nods, 'cause he'd been like that, too. Back in the seventies. Though New York is bound to have been a little different from Sheffield, he reflects.

Viggo's smile fades away. "Cheap thrills," he adds quietly. "Easy money."

Viggo is pursing his lips a little, almost a pout, not quite. For just that one moment he looks a lot like an annoyed, arrogant Aragorn. A guilt-free Aragorn, maybe, not so tormented and noble and sad. He looks, for a moment, dark and dangerous, Aragorn fallen to the temptation of the Ring.

Viggo tilts his head a little, as though letting Sean have a better look at the scar. "Some guy who didn't feel like paying for it." Viggo's finger comes up again, barely touching, more like pointing. "I got slammed up against a barbwire fence, in an alley." Viggo takes his hand away. "Afterwards."

For a moment, Sean doesn't realize Viggo has stopped talking, his tale told. Sean is looking at him, looking at the scar. For that one moment, he's not doing anything else than that--looking.

"Crazy times," he hears Viggo say again, but maybe it's just in his head.

Sean thinks Viggo must be joking. Awful joke. Then he realizes he's not. He can't tell why, but he just knows Viggo's tale is for real. Viggo is still looking at him, and has told him a crazy, real tale.

"I don't do that anymore, of course," Viggo says, and Aragorn looks at Sean with a very serious, almost saddened glance.

"Not for money," Viggo says, and then Aragorn adds, tilting his head a little towards Sean, "Nor just for thrills." And Aragorn's voice is so smooth and perfect, Sean can hear everything in it, hear what it's saying, loud and clear; and when he does, it cuts right through his soul. Through skin and flesh and heart, leaving a trail of burning blood in its wake.

Sean licks his lips, unaware of doing it, just lets the words seep into him, one by one. He'll think of this, all of this, later. He'll think of the whole evening, his asking Viggo round to go over their lines, to get to know each other before filming their scenes together. Of Viggo's easy acceptance, of the dinner they shared in Sean's flat. Of Sean's inane chatter about work, about past life, about people they both know or don't. Of his disappointment at getting nowhere with Viggo, and why he'd felt it so keenly.

He'll think of Viggo's tale, of course, the truth of it, the reality of it, Viggo telling him, just like that.

A tale of fighting, of blood.

Sean'll think of it, think of the wild Aragorn sitting on his couch, looking right through Sean and giving him Viggo's past, Viggo's truth. His crazy past and the simple truth of it.

Giving something of himself, no need for asking. Just giving.

But for now, Sean just nods, and feels a little madness in himself, too.

He is thinking that Aragorn will see Boromir's blood flow before long, mingling with his own. He's still hearing Viggo's last words, burning bright red somewhere deep inside.

"Just for real," he hears himself say.

And that, he knows now, doesn't come cheap.

Viggo nods, his lips curving in a new, easy smile, not quite so wild or so dangerous anymore, just... a smile. A welcoming smile.

The dark, unknown Aragorn is gone, the madness passed. They're getting somewhere, at last.

And Sean is not seeing Viggo's scar anymore.

*****

THE END

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