Posted: June 2004
Title: Unexpected
Author: Helena Snow-Renn
Type: RPS
Characters: Viggo Mortensen/Sean Bean
Rating: PG-13
WARNING: Slash. Schmoop. Mentions drug use. Psycho-babble.
Disclaimer: As always, this is fiction. It never happened.
Summary: One day Viggo finds himself in love, in lust, in something…
Notes: To all those addicted to the pairing.

*****

The long careful dance of it was driving Viggo crazy. Day in, day out, ever since day one it had been the same. The intricacies had at first baffled him, then consumed him. By now, he knew how to fit the wide scheme of things without anyone suspecting anything. Most mornings he woke up strangely refreshed despite the all-night freak-show porno dreams. Viggo was not such an innocent that he was ashamed by them. It was only his subconscious acting up. Boy was it ever! And no wonder. One only have to associate with those in starring roles. It had taken all of two days in N.Z. before they caught up to Viggo in his sleep.

Orli was beautiful and knew it; that was his beginning and his end; he was all things to all people. ‘Lijah was pretty, for lack of a better word, and while still too young to really know how to work it, soon he would. Billy, especially in his hobbit get-up, had a shadow of girlishness which appealed to a sweet side of Viggo he hadn't known he possessed. Dom… shades of street punk, maybe. Then there were distinguished Ian, Thor-like John, and lovable little Sean/Sam. And lately, Sean, the other one. The one… Dammit. A miasma of pictures would appear in flashes of still-frame, hundreds sometimes, in mere seconds during those dreams; dreams so elemental they were like thunder and lightning waging war. Every morning he'd make himself forget. He did his business and then it was business as usual.

The blond British man had captivated him not at all when they first met. The younger non-American kids had all danced around him, practically begging for his attention. ‘Like he was Ian, or something,' Viggo huffed to himself.

What was the big deal with this person they'd just had to have to play the fallen one? Viggo could do ‘fallen' quite well, thank you; he dusted off distant memories of his stint as Lucifer. Becoming that character had meant gleefully sneaking up on and scaring people, fucking any willing thing on two legs into the ground, and so much drinking and coke snorting he'd nearly ended up in rehab. All one had to do was let their base instincts out. For that same reason, it was usually easier to play a bad-ass than a hero. Not in this movie. Even with Aragorn's complications as reluctant King-in-waiting, Viggo knew his job was earlier, because whatever his own personal weaknesses, Aragorn was not tempted.

Sean's character was not the classical bad guy though. Bomomir's various desires plagued him night and day and were thinly veiled. He wanted all the wrong things, but for all the right reasons. Over days and weeks Viggo grudgingly acknowledged Sean's depth. He managed to do his job totally convincingly, and yet not be swallowed by his role at the end of the day.

Viggo started saying wryly to himself, at least twice daily, ‘Gollum is not the only schizophrenic around here.' Schitzo in the popular vernacular, split-personality model; none of the delusions of grandeur, hallucinations, paranoia. He was prompted to reflect on how all people carried that trait to some degree, using himself as a model. The mental picture was similar to a simple cell. First, innermost, just *himself,* in a little implanted, intrinsic nucleus; second, the artistic ectoplasm surrounding that, infused with enough of his essential self to find its commonly known and accepted outlets and still hidden enough to put it all into code—code of color, code of angle, code of turn-of-phrase. Third, surrounding those elements and separate, yet opaque, if anyone cared to look, his outside, public self.

If not a cell, then any enclosure with a wall down the middle. Try as he might, he couldn't be on both sides at once. More and more, he was Aragorn. That was not what Viggo wanted. The walls firmly in place that were constructed by just Viggo-being-Viggo would need to drop a few bricks. As if he wasn't a few bricks short of a wall some days, already. The thing in his head weighed a ton of bricks. If it didn't get worked out one of these days, he was going to shit a brick, because…

One day it happened, the big "it" that was totally random, totally unexpected. Viggo found himself in love, in lust, in something; undoubtedly in deep shit if he didn't watch himself. He knew precisely when it happened, down to the second.

Sean had been standing on some boulder in full regalia, holding forth with Ian about theatre in the West End. The two of them traded lines, obviously Shakespeare, though Viggo had no idea which play it was from. On top of his boulder, Sean was smoking a cigarette, which was totally at odds with his character, and he waved his arms around enthusiastically in a way you'd never catch Boromir doing. Viggo looked, watched, did a minute-long double take more than anything. Why had he never seen…? Viggo's breath caught; his hands started to shake. Before he could be caught staring, he made to turn away. Just then one of Sean's gesticulations went awry. He lost his balance, and after a couple seconds of pin-wheeling his arms, fell heavily from the stone onto his back. As he thudded to the ground, it seemed that his grey-green eyes riveted to Viggo's, holding them throughout his fall in a way that said if he were injured or worse, the other man was what he wanted in his sight in his final moment.

Luckily, Sean wasn't hurt. The look on his face was priceless. ‘Adorable,' thought Viggo before mentally crossing it off with a big black line. Then Sean took a deep breath, looked away, and laughing, said, "Well, I just made a bloody arse of m'self, eh?" A smirking Orlando helped him to his feet. Viggo studied the contrast between the two from the corner of his eye. He wished he had his camera on him; then he was glad he didn't. Yeah, real subtle, Viggo. Just go burn up a few more rolls of film in your ode to masculine beauty. His study had been, up this point, glaringly devoid of Sean.

But that wasn't it at all, he finally realized. It had nothing to do with outward appearances. Oh, no. Their characters were at odds. Viggo was so entrenched in his Aragorn he didn't see till now how he'd rebuffed Sean/Boromir as part of method acting. There was a slightly competitive edge to their dynamic, even off-screen. ‘Slightly?' he scolded himself. No, he didn't go in for that ego-tripping bullshit. It was his own pride, holding out so he wouldn't have to acknowledge what had developed stealthily and now walloped him to the core.

Shit. He would have to go home and biofeedback his way out of it.

Wrong. The only thing his mediations accomplished was a grudging acquiesce to his feelings and the will to keep it to himself. Still, it was better than denial.

‘One of these days,' he promised himself.

It would be a full thirty days before he would work up the nerve.

Funny how thirty days could feel like a life sentence.

*****

THE END

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