Linger

Linger

Posted: May 26, 2006
Title: Linger
Author: Klatschmohn
Type: RPS
Characters: Sean/Viggo
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: All made up

Summary: This is an interpretation of Viggo´s book "Linger" as a story.

*****

Chapter 1 - Linger

Viggo was used to reading his poems in front of shadows melting together into an anonymous black mass - enthroned on the stage, spotlight encircling him like a cage of light.

Sometimes he melancholically missed his young days as a poet, flushed with the embarrassment and excitement of reading in front of even a small public. Sitting at the same level as his audience, meeting their eyes, taking in the faces of maybe twenty-something individuals with their different and personal reactions. Few people had come to listen to his poetry then, but each single person had truly come to listen to his poetry.

Now, the majority of his - mostly female - listeners weren´t fans of his poetry in the first place, but fans of him. Of him? No, a bitter, treacherous voice whispered shrewishly- they were fans of Aragorn or Walker Jerome. They looked at him without seeing who he was and heard his poems without understanding a word. The irony of it all struck him. The same absurdity he had always seen in a famous and brilliant painting being shut in a dark safe as a clever investment, forever hidden from admiring eyes, he saw now in a newspaper article on one of his poetry readings, dealing more with his rugged handsomeness, his blue eyes and lonely-cowboy-sexiness than with his writing. What was he? An acknowledged luminary of poetry? Or a victim of his own success, pilloried at the marketplace of fame?

Today, something felt different. Viggo´s over-perceptive seventh sense noticed a "strong presence," as if a certain "intensity" was directed at him by someone among his spectators. A fleeting suspicion passed by, reminding him of warnings by friends that the government sent out spies or "secret agents" to gather information about him as a "subversive subject," but he shrugged it off. Prisoner of the limelight, he could not make out anyone in the dim dusty room, but the "vibrations" reaching him were not repelling. They even kept him awake and secure in a way.

Half of the visitors already shuffled their feet, impatiently waiting for the moment when they could jump into action and fight for a promising place in the queue waiting for the book signing.

As always, the signing was the more straining part. In earlier days, he´d often met up with some of the guests to his poetry readings in a pub afterwards. They had relaxed, shared some drinks and discussed his writing, or arts, poetry and politics in general. More often than not the others talked more than he did, and he was merrily and peacefully left to watch the scenery in his self-chosen stillness. He had always loved that: simply watching people.

He would never again in his life be able to rest in a corner of a pub and just watch, it seemed. He was robbed of the most simple and basic privilege every child enjoys.

These days, everybody concentrated on him. It was stressful, getting all their names right, thinking of appropriate answers in not two much of a script but not too personal either, smiling for their photos, writing a dedication according to their wishes, and all of this hundreds of times over more than five hours. He was exhausted, drained from trying to cope with the expectations of each single fan who had waited patiently for her 20 seconds with Viggo, paying attention to all their little wishes and suggestions and questions, showing the proper measure of admiration for their presents, and getting rid of them without behaving unkindly.

Viggo thought it would be less arduous to conquer the Antarctic ice. At least he wouldn´t meet anyone for weeks, and even a polar bear having it in mind to eat him alive couldn´t frighten him more than all these women who wanted pretty much the same, come to think about it.

It was not that he didn´t like them. The room was crowded by sympathetic women, intelligent, witty and charming. In the old days he would have been glad if he had met some of them at an after-reading pub discussion, but the whole situation was perverted now, and nothing could be right within this big falseness.

When it was over and the hall emptied, Viggo looked up for the first time- the realisation hit him right between the eyes. He knew what the subconscious premonition, the psychic sensation of feeling someone´s energy had been about:

Sean was here. His dazzling smile, as he walked up to Viggo, effortlessly beautiful as ever, rolling of lissom hips, candid light in his eyes... he had taken Viggo´s breath away the first time he saw him, and every time ever since when he closed his eyes and thought of him. He still took his breath away now.

The electric impulse pushed Viggo vertical. Sean enclosed him in his embrace; Viggo felt embarrassed, noticing that he was trembling all over, while Sean held him safe, calm and sure.

"Would you mind going out with me for a drink? Or are you too tired?"

Viggo shook his head. "No... I´m not tired."

Half an hour ago, he had felt worn out enough to lie down and die then and there, but the tiredness was pumped out of his body the very moment Sean touched him. He hadn´t felt as wide awake as for a month, as if his batteries were recharged with one powerful surge, almost searing his nerves with overdrive.

"Good. I´ve come to talk to you."

Talk? They had last met and fucked in Toronto, and they had last talked...when? - During their trip together in New Zealand, it seemed. Since the LotR filming was over, they met on rare occasions, and they usually skipped the talking. Since the first time they had had sex, body language had replaced words.

Viggo´s body had learned to instinctively assess the meaning of all the various little sounds Sean made during sex. The whole arsenal of pants, sighs, grunts and hums, covered the spectrum from, "Give me more, and fast," to "ouch, that hurt," from raw desire to lush pleasure, from overwhelming tenderness to animalistic lust, from jolly amusement to contented fatigue. Viggo sensed gradual differences. Just like the Inuit have one hundred words for different kinds of snow and inhabitants of the jungle use as many words for a multitude shades of green.

Viggo´s flesh, skin and nerves not only interpreted Sean´s signals, he also intuitively adapted to them in the appropriate way, like an automatic gear shift follows the given speed without thought.

They could do everything to each other and with each other. And they did. Trusting each other far beyond just the rational conviction of knowing each other as decent men, they blindly trusted each other with their reflexes; like trapeze artists, flying high, never doubting to be caught and hold.

They could be everything with each other and for each other. And they were. Innocently nefarious, licentiously experimental, languorously tender, happily perverted, lividly salacious.

Words seemed ludicrously inadequate when they moved together in effervescent passion, when each touch and kiss flashed out truth and seriousness, eternal dedication.

But when the day of good-bye came nearer, Viggo knew their future had to be negotiated or there would be none. He still couldn´t tell what their relationship meant to Sean, what Sean thought about them, how he would classify what they shared.

Their bodies communicated in perfect trust and understanding, learning each other till they were acquainted with every little reaction and unconscious movement, while - in an odd case of inverse proportion - mute awkwardness and alienation had slowly settled between their minds.

For Viggo especially this was unusual, and very unlike himself. If any man was fit to talk over issues in a relationship, it was him. And he never had been into casual sex - not for moral reasons, it just wasn´t his thing. Also, they had been able to talk quite fairly as long as they were just friends.

He began to suffer from their not-talking, but also always had lots of excuses for what he knew was essentially his cowardice, his anxiety of losing Sean with "pressing." He never found the right time. And what was the benefit of defining what they had anyway? It would become words, just words. Whatever they called it, in practice it could never be more than what they had now. Too many other obligations, complications, considerations stood in the way. So why make it harder with discussing feelings? Their bodies didn´t seem to need their relationship to be sorted out.

On their last night together in New Zealand Viggo fought back the words that longed to be set loose and linger in Sean´s ear.

They had taken turns fucking each other, in the literal sense of "like there was no tomorrow", and in the end they lay wrapped around each other, glued together with sweat and semen.

Too tired and drained to talk, they had fallen asleep as one body with two heads and eight limbs.

And then, there had been no tomorrow.

*

Now, they sat opposite each other in a tiny, cozy little restaurant, and after they had covered family, job and mutual friends with their conversation, Viggo coyly asked, "You said you wanted to talk... about what?"

"About your book."

*****

Chapter 2 - The Poetry Analysis

"My book...?" The surprise half-hid the disappointment that lay deeper.

Sean nodded slyly.

"Okay..." drawled Viggo, getting poised for the unexpected.

"I want to ask you why you called it "Linger."

"Eh?" Viggo asked, nonplussed.

"Let me explain..." Sean rummaged in his small bag and produced a copy of Viggo´s book. It was loaded with neat little sheets scribbled full of notes in Sean´s handwriting.

Viggo blinked. The perfect organisation and meticulous neatness was very much seany-ish, yet working his way through a work of poetry like this wasn´t Sean-like at all. Of course, Viggo knew that there was more to Sean than just dull bloke-ishness, that he possessed more sensitivity and a much more flexible brain than many people gave him credit for, but this...

Sean frowned and absent-mindedly fumbled for his spectacles, putting them on for a moment, then nodded to himself and stuffed them back in their case. The deep diagonal ascending furrows above his eyebrows accentuated the expression of concentration on Sean´s face so beautifully it filled Viggo with aching desire. The same thing always happened when he discovered something "new" about Sean. Seeing him in a way he hadn´t seen him before meant there were parts of Sean he hadn´t "possessed," and instantly wanted to "have." jealous of anything Sean might deny him.

Also, the strangeness of Sean´s performance deepened the notion of being separated from him, of not knowing him anymore, and this, too, added to the maddening drive to claim him again.

This time, confusion mingled with the want. It was indeed like watching Sean in a new movie role that was combed against his image. Viggo had very much enjoyed the rarely forthcoming facets of Sean´s acting ability in his latest non-villain-ish roles, but now he was overcome by dizzying doubt over whether this was still real life or if he was witness to a rehearsal.

In some ways, the suspicion was warranted; Sean had practised for this. And he had even had the advice of some "director"...

"When I read your book... I noticed that the only story you tell in a narrative, easily understandable way is that of the exhumation of a dead dog," Sean murmured. It was clearly not yet the start of the lecture he seemed to have prepared, but an improvised preamble, a memory crossing his mind - and it was a mistake.

Sean immediately realised it himself, because Viggo´s face went stiff, his body tensed. He was ready to get up from the table before Sean had even begun - but when Sean looked up in honest regret, Viggo slowly breathed out through his nostrils and decided to let it pass.

"What else..." Sean flipped pages, with nervous resoluteness, then rested on page 27."...the story of an old and empty house where no one can live anymore, or, even worse, the house doesn´t want anyone in it..." He sized Viggo up, shortly, with unintentional sharpness, and Viggo lowered his lashes.

Sean was adamant. "I don´t always understand what you´re talking of, but just let me quote some sentences to make myself clear: Page 13 - `Will I let bygones be bygones?' Page 17 - `Strain and see wheel sunk in moss so deep it´s lost.' Page 30 - `Music that rises, breaks away from its source, hovers over wet, empty streets.' Or: `A picture a face, blizzard-bit: one of many images never captured. One more missed opportunity to exploit and order the growing past.' And here: `What seem like lucid glimpses sparkling inside untutored lapses only confirm value of trying nothing, saying nothing, solving nothing.' - All this, Viggo, is about loss and vanity, which is the opposite of anything that could be associated with the word "Linger." The only thing that lingers here is the feeling of emptiness and absence."

Viggo resembled a ghost now, blanched to a degree of serious anaemia. Like on keyword, Sean went on:

"Page 53: `We make bad ghosts, and are last to know or believe we too will fade, just as our acrid smoke and those strange flakes of skin and strands of hair will, into largely undocumented extinction.' I don´t suppose you meant the title to be paradoxical? So, what´s the aspect of `lingering' in your book?"

Viggo stared at him with an almost hostile glare, his lips firmly pressed to a line, obviously not going to answer. He felt like Sean had committed an act of spoliation - taken his poems as hostages for blackmailing a confession out of him.

Finally he gathered himself to take up his defence. "You remind me of the mediocre so-called fans who believe they know me and patterns of my behaviour because they watched a few movies and mix me up with the characters I played. They point out certain characteristics they think they discovered and insist it´s so "obvious." That´s just weird. You should know all about that, Sean. You often told me about how police men or officials at borders mistake you for a baddy just because a dim memory of a villain with your face comes to their minds, and we laughed about that. People who are so sure that they know what a piece of art tells about its creator simply don´t get it - they don´t understand the nature of art."

Sean wavered in his resolve to see it through. He hadn´t been sure from the start whether this was such a good idea. He had read Viggo´s new book weeks ago, because it was the only information available, out of the desperate wish to look inside Viggo´s head. Maybe it would allow him to be able to read between the lines and find something... a trace of lost crumbs of words he could follow, that would lead him to Viggo´s heart.

He didn´t remember how and why it came up, but he had talked to Dave about it. Sean always had considered Dave a more intellectual guy, a more-like-Viggo bloke than himself. He explained how he always had felt that he couldn´t get "through" to Viggo.

Sean put the blame on himself. Long ago, back in New Zealand, he had known that Viggo wanted to talk. But Sean blocked. Viggo, a real man, a mature man, was obviously confused like teenager, waiting for the right moment to confess his love for Sean.

Sean had honestly, truly believed he was doing his friend a favour, preventing him from a foolish slip he would regret as soon as his brain clicked back into normal function. It was okay to have sex with men - always a pleasant change like exotic food, sharp and spicy. But that Viggo seemingly had come to think he wanted more must have had to do with their secluded situation during filming. With the intense experience being together so close for a long time and the tension and exhaustion the filming often caused. It was girlish; childish - just ridiculous.

Sean was willing to show leniency and understanding and look over it generously. He would protect his friend from behaving silly. He would give him no chance to declare himself and thus keep his dignity.

Yes, their sex was special - more than that: unique. But that was just chemistry. Put two of the right elements together and you have an explosion. That has everything to do with laws of nature and nothing with - love.

It had taken years until Sean realised that he had been the fool. Years of boring insipidity and laggard listlessness in sex and conversation with various partners, interrupted by euphoric fireworks and lucid tranquillity when he met Viggo on rare occasions.

Lost years of stubborn denial, and then it seemed too late. Now it was Sean who timidly tried to talk, and it was Viggo who wallowed in lugubrious refusal. Something in Viggo had expired - his hope, and maybe, his love. Sean had wanted to talk in Toronto, but Viggo hadn´t even really realised it, locked up in his ivory tower Guilt and shame wormed into Sean´s courage; he had given up.

Weeks later he had listened to Viggo´s answer to the question in an interview, whether love was important in his life. "I don´t talk about it - not with friends, and certainly not with journalists," Viggo had firmly rejected the question. The "not with friends" part of the answer had sounded incredibly sad to Sean.

During their long talk, Dave had offered the theory that Viggo somehow hid and barricaded himself behind his arts and poetry. According to Dave´s psychoanalysis, Viggo obviously wanted to communicate his thoughts and feelings, or else he wouldn´t publish the poems and literature he wrote. Viggo wanted to tell something about himself, but trusted no one. That contradiction - the need to speak of his feelings versus the fundamental distrust in both friends and strangers - made him write cryptic poems, revealing and disguising himself at the same time in a very personal, subjective ´sign-language,´ as he - typically - called one of his books.

In some way, Viggo´s poems were like a "message in a bottle." He sent them out into the world, without much hope that someone could decipher the code of his mind.

So, if Viggo cordoned himself off, behind his poems, Sean would have to use them like a stairway or a bridge to reach him... which included stepping on them...

Sean had already opened up page 62: "And in this one you´re telling of a blood stain you used to "visit," kneeling down in front of it as if it was some "blood sacrifice" on an altar. Maybe in a way it was - legitimating this gesture of hopeless nostalgic desperation with artistic purposes... " Sean´s voice took on a mocking tone, "... looking for the right light for a photo..."

Viggo gave him a hard glare, the one he used to ward off his pursuers when his privacy was invaded. Sean stayed silent for a few seconds, watching Viggo attentively, but when Viggo showed no reaction at all he went on. "But in the end the blood stain is so faded you can hardly find the outlines... I must admit, you find a hundred original and sadly beautiful ways to essentially repeat the same concepts. Is there one word, Viggo, one word that is not a metaphor of death and disappearance and decay?"

Viggo felt as if Sean flailed him alive to get to the pip. It was a 180-degree turn, too - from his resignation with the audience at his reading, his secret conviction they didn´t get anywhere near the meaning of anything he wrote with their guesses, to Sean´s brutal invasion in the sacred area.

Without warning, he suddenly got up and left. He was already halfway down the street, when Sean caught up with him, grabbing his shoulder. Viggo cried out harshly, and hauled him back. Sean hit the nearest wall, felt his head crash against it with the momentum, the bursting of skin and crunching of bones. He knew he was bleeding, but within split seconds he had already flung himself towards Viggo and delivered a savage smashing blow to Viggo´s chin.

Viggo staggered backwards, but managed to catch his balance; he flicked a look at Sean, his eyes moist, flashing with violent loathing and fierce despair.

They had often fought, though it had always been fun wrestling and never a means of arguing. Two things had become obvious long ago: one, that Viggo was the stronger man; the other, that Sean would win in a serious fight. Sean could unleash his potential for violence far too quickly and easily for Viggo to cope with.

Both men were panting heavily, staring each other down.

Suddenly, in the most unrequited moment, Viggo´s mind came up with a memory-vision of Sean, totally out of context: Sean, whimpering beneath him... little sexy whimpers that didn´t stem from pain. "No...no... please... no..." Sean hissed and sighed, but Viggo had known that Sean didn´t want him to stop fucking him. Sean´s body´s reactions confirmed it, too - the way he met Viggo´s thrusts, opened up for him, trying to take even more, the way his body flushed with overheated blood. Even his voice was stripped of every other tone than the sweetness, hoarseness and softness of pure arousal, but nevertheless he kept on pleading. "No... please, no..." And when Viggo came, shuddering in endless spasms deep inside him, he still whispered "No...no," and his eyes filled with tears, while his own come flooded between them.

The unwelcome picture, blurred with the sight in front of him, made Viggo dimly realise the connection.

Sean´s eyes were begging.

They were begging him to tell the truth, to talk to him. Sean didn´t speak, didn´t formulate his plea, which made it worse, because Viggo didn´t have to answer simply to words; he had to answer to those eyes.

The most beautiful, honest, and tender eyes, and they were begging...

Viggo knew he should produce compassion, but all he felt was fear, mindless panic. He felt like a soldier who looking into the eyes of a child he´s going to kill.

Almost stumbling backwards, he retreated, unable to take his eyes from Sean and turn away.

And then he cried out, not very loudly, but raw with pure horror, filled with tremendous pain, out of his innnermost core:

"No!"

*****

Chapter 3 - The Poetry Slam

Viggo was shivering with rage, his glare so hard it almost physically cut into Sean´s flesh.

Sean flinched, but simultaneously an angry-lusty swoosh of grim desire whisked through him.

It had always aroused him to no end to watch Viggo lose control, in any way. Everybody knew gravely melancholic Viggo and quirky crazy Viggo, but Sean got to see the wild side Viggo only revealed in his movies roles. Sean could break through Viggo´s habitual cool thoughtful calmness and make him lose himself in raw, untamed emotion - shrieking with lust, growling with fury, or both at once.

After three, four steps further backwards Viggo stopped. "No", he repeated, this time in a breathless groan.

Sean carefully followed Viggo, with the smooth predatory slowness of a crocodile or a hunting panther in his movements, his eyes smoky gold, hypnotically fixed on his prey. Viggo poised himself to strike out, nervous like a cornered animal which would prefer flight but has no chance but fight. Sean noticed the muscle tonus rising in Viggo´s body, his fists clenching convulsively.

"Hit me," Sean said calmly. "Hit me, Viggo. I won´t stop you."

He stepped within the radius of Viggo´s range, in a deliberate offence of territory, at the same time letting his own arms hang down defencelessly, an ambiguous fetial gesture, challenge and surrender both at once. "Hit me," he whispered.

Sean knew the breaking point was close. Viggo would either lash out blindly or... - the tension in Viggo´s posture slackened, shoulders and head sinking down, the angry glow in his light eyes slowly extinguished by dark lashes closing over them.

"You know I can´t... you bastard..."

Sean grabbed his T-shirt and pulled him closer; Viggo plunged forward passively, turning his head to the side. Sean´s fingers ran through Viggo´s hair and finally stopped, his palms flatly pressed against the back of Viggo´s head, lifting and directing it towards him, Viggo´s face enclosed between his forearms. Sean´s elbows lightly rested on Viggo´s shoulders; the whole gesture became a punctuated act of possession, and taking.

An almost claustrophobic narrowness dizzied Viggo, as if the limitation of movement at the same time trammelled his freedom of thought. He knew Sean was going to kiss him, and though he didn´t exactly want it, it wasn´t negotiable. With Sean, a kiss never was.

Sean´s tongue probed, tentatively licking the corner of Viggo´s mouth first, slick, coarse-fine and hot, but as Viggo opened up with a helpless moan, the sneaky little beast fell in with unmasked greed.

Sean changed position, his left arm snaking around Viggo resolutely. Clutching Viggo´s arm tightly against his body; his right arm encircled Viggo´s neck, his hand grasping Viggo´s chin from behind. With a sudden jerk of his left arm, he made Viggo arch; his fingers lifted Viggo´s chin and pulled his head back. He leant over him, his tongue swooping down inside Viggo´s mouth, sucking, chewing, as if it was an act of vampirism or cannibalism - more than a kiss.

There comes point when a vampire´s victim turns into willing prey and enjoys being emptied of his blood, consciousness, and life. In the same way, Viggo surrendered. Sean pushed his hands past his waistband and into his boxers, firmly squeezing his buttocks. Sean´s hand invaded his clothes, like his tongue did with Viggo´s mouth, and Viggo was ready to bend over the next rubbish bin in the small cobbled alley.

Sean hadn´t planned on this, and Viggo would have had revolted if he had had the strength to resist, but as so many times before, their bodies took over, basic instinct claiming the lead. They would have ended up fucking in the dark dirty corner of the street, if sounds of human voices had not filtered through their sex-driven minds, reaching their fainting rational thinking in shaggy blubbering waves. It was difficult to de-tangle, to tear away hands and mouths. Reluctantly, Sean let go, deprived of his primal need; the frustration ached like a painful cramp.

The impulse still rushed through his nerves. Set on taking Viggo, his fingers twitched into empty space, programmed to dig into Viggo´s skin; his tongue licked out for the remaining taste of Viggo on his lips.

They waited with halted breaths until the wall of steps and voices faded, but the spell had been broken.

"You can´t do this to me... you have no right," Viggo hissed.

Sean´s knees went limp, he let his back fall against the wall for support. His fingers combed through his hair in helpless desperation. He lowered his head abruptly in forced resignation, his pulse racing. His whole body slumped and heaved with fast unsteady breaths.

"Send me away, then, Viggo," he panted, half swallowing a little sobbing groan at the end. "Dump me once and for all. Tell me to go if want me to leave? Do you?"

Viggo nodded, faltered, but nodded again, unable to speak, choking at the lump in his throat.

Sean levered himself up, both hands left and right near his hips, pushing back against the wall. For a moment of vicious silence, they stared at each other with one last screaming glance, an outpouring of everything that veered between them, white-hot desire and vindictive violence. Sean could see dark lines that smoked across the shimmering blue of Viggo´s remorselessly stagnant eyes like undercurrents of sadness, but the whole chaos of the past minutes had riled him up and drained him at the same time. He knew he would not be able to adapt to even more sudden twists and turns. He walked away - and heard the little sigh that formed his name more with his heart than his ears.

"Sean..."

Giving himself an inner kick, Sean gathered his last mental and emotional resources, turned, and once again slowly approached Viggo.

"Stop," Viggo expelled the word harshly, then went on more fluently: "Don´t touch me or I´ll be on my knees sucking you off within seconds," he stated with a deadly tone of warning in his voice. Sean blinked incredulously, in total bewilderment.

"And that´s supposed to be a threat?" For a moment Sean had to wonder whether Viggo´s craziness had progressed from "slightly mental" to full hardcore insanity.

A throaty little laugh from Viggo, but then his seriousness returned.

"Yes."

His hands painted a few inquisitive circles in the air, obviously urging Sean to understand, struggling for words to explain, but deserted by his usual eloquence.

Nevertheless, realisation densely gloomed in Sean´s confused mind, and he nodded slowly.

"Okay. We´ll talk this through first."

*****

Chapter 4 - Poetry and Prose

The street corner wasn´t a very appropriate place to talk; neither did Viggo want to discuss their private concerns in a pub. Sean knew Viggo had a hotel room somewhere in the city, but didn´t dare ask about it. If he was very lucky, Viggo would perhaps invite him there later; but certainly not now, after he had just made it clear - though in a somewhat "original" way - that he was afraid they´d drift along their usual "shipping channel" once again and fucking would replace the talking as it had so many times before.

They decided to talk in Sean´s car, which he had parked nearby, but unfortunately on more of a main road. It was still far too crowded with people who curiously peeked at them through the front window. Sean suggested they drive just a short distance to a quieter area of town.

But when he shifted gears to pass the third corner, he heard long, deep breaths accompanying the humming of the engine. He flicked a short glance sideways - his eyes opened wide and he almost ran the next streetlight. He shook his head, disbelieving, then chuckled inwardly. Viggo had fallen asleep, probably as soon as he had fastened the seat belt.

Viggo had once told him of an incident from his childhood, when his mother had angrily scolded him. Ten minutes later she noticed he was gone. Panicking through the whole house looking for the little boy in growing suspicion that he had run away, she finally found him where she had least expected him - sleeping as innocently as an angel in his bed.

The embrace of sleep seemed to be Viggo´s natural emergency escape from conflicts he found hard to face. Sean sighed. He didn´t want to wake him up. He had no clue where his hotel room was. While he kept on driving, anxious a sudden halt of the engine would disturb Viggo´s sleep, his eyes were repetitiously drawn back to the peaceful face beside him. Varying colours of neon writings and traffic lights bathed Viggo´s features in quickly changing arrangements of fluorescent paint. Radiant blue and purple flecks and aphotic darkness obscured parts of it. Sean felt reminded of Viggo´s self-portraits in photos: never revealing his face completely, showing only puzzle-pieces of himself - masking behind interestingly-shaped shadows... just enough to give a hint this could be Viggo.

Sean drove around in silly circles, overcome by a Godot-like sensation of complete and absolute absurdity. Once again his eyes fell on the "Sleeping Beauty" besides him. Slowly but irresistibly, an idea beckoned.

It was a two-hour drive to Viggo´s home - for Sean, that was. It would have taken three and a half for Viggo. Whatever Viggo had left in the hotel, they could fetch it tomorrow.

Sean was tired and worn out, too, after listening to Viggo´s poetry reading, then hiding from all the women in Viggo´s audience while holding out and waiting for him for hours, not to mention the convoluted dramatics of their talk and chaotic outburst of all the contradictory feelings between them. But looking at Viggo in sweet slumber he felt very protective about his man. He would bring him home safely, however exhausted and drained he felt himself.

Carefully, he fumbled for Viggo´s coat on the backseat with his right hand. He emptied the pockets - there was nothing in them besides Viggo´s keys anyway - then rolled and crumpled it into a cushion, fastidiously stuffing it under Viggo´s cheek to stabilise the position of his head. A while later - he was already about to hit the highway - he had managed to drape his own coat over Viggo´s body to give him warmth, all while steering one-handedly.

When they arrived at the familiar house, Viggo was even more deeply asleep. For some minutes, Sean quietly watched him, unable to call him back into night, cold, and reality.

After a while he saw two of Viggo´s neighbours coming down the street, probably returning after a long night out. He simply let the two figures creep across his retinas, without any definite thought gaining gestalt in his diffuse mind...until sudden enlightenment almost made him leap off the seat.

*

Half an hour later, Sean lurched out of Viggo´s bathroom and crept into bed beside him. Sean smiled with the satisfaction of having managed to bundle off a consciousless Viggo from the car into the bed. For three men, Viggo wasn´t a heavy weight... the hardest part of the task had been suppressing his laughter. A broad grin stayed on Sean´s face while sleep carried him away on its wings...

Sean was the first to wake up. Though it couldn´t have been more than three or four hours of sleep, he felt refreshed and energy-loaded. He sneaked out of the bedroom and downstairs into the kitchen and living room.

It was a wonderful morning: shimmering pale rosé flushed the room, and with the rising sun, cascades of golden light burst through the terrace door. It was cool outside, but Sean couldn´t resist and stepped out.

The horizon was decorated with garlands and wavering cloud-ribbons in light and happy colours, as if the sun was celebrating her birthday today. Sean stretched his limbs cat-like, breathed in deeply and returned into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. Aromatic clouds of coffee, milk and toast smells swept through the house.

"You kidnapped me home..." came Viggo´s murmur from the stairs, just as Sean carried a huge steaming pot of coffee into the living room, whistling quietly. Viggo´s blue eyes were still round and wondering.

That´s what I wanted to do for a very long time, Sean thought, but merely grinned.

They ate and drank silently, both knowing they had to talk, but unsure of how to start.

"I interrupted you last night," Viggo said.

Sean collected himself doubtfully. He wasn´t sure whether he really should take the long way via Viggo´s book once again, instead of speaking right out what he wanted to say. But Viggo had already shoved a copy of "Linger" towards him. He smiled, noticing Sean´s worried eyes. "I´d like to hear the rest of your interpretation of my book."

Sean hesitated, but inwardly agreed it might be easier for them to get started, when they just moved along his initial concepts... after all these years out of practise in talking about their issues.

Sean didn´t want to act as an impostor, so he started with putting things straight and told Viggo that he had planned this together with Dave.

"... but it was my idea," Sean confessed. "It started when I looked at one of Georg Gudni´s paintings - Yes, I´ve been to the exhibition," he admitted at Viggo´s quizzical look. "Suddenly it was no wonder to me that you are so fascinated with them, because they do "linger." They give a sense of what "linger" is, holding and keeping the true essence of what will never change in a landscape to the end of time. The longer I looked at his paintings, the better I understood that your photos are the exact opposite of that, Vig - and therefore, in some way, go together so brilliantly with these paintings in an exhibition. His paintings speak of eternity, your photos of split moments."

Viggo stared at Sean for a long while. Sean wasn´t sure whether he might have crossed a line again, and didn´t push any further, waiting for Viggo´s reaction. An enigmatic and sinister shadow ghosted over Viggo´s face. With a cool and neutral voice he answered. "I´m influenced by the art of the Impressionists, Sean. The fleeting light and random movements of their subjects." He inwardly gathered ammunition, thinking of the statements of critics who attested he gave "lucid glimpses," surprises with perspective and composition in experimental ways, and considered which of the praises he should use against Sean. But Sean was faster.

"Oh, your photos are everything you want - everything but appropriate illustrations for a book called ´Linger´." Sean didn´t know where the words came from. He simply felt that Viggo was building up his resistance again. His art was still his castle and he wasn´t prepared to give up his defences so easily.

He knew he aimed at the weakest, most vulnerable point, but it was now or never if he wanted to get through to Viggo. He never once had had a chance in a discussion with Viggo concerning the "higher intellectual things," though sometimes he knew he had the deeper approach - but instinctively, without being able to put it to words. It was just how he had fleshed out Boromir by instinct, whereas Viggo would have been able to write a postdoctoral thesis on Aragorn.

Sean usually didn´t win arguments. This time, he had to.

He shook his head. "The impressionists of the 19 th century tried to catch and celebrate the beauty of the moment, your photos mourn and be-weep the realisation that it cannot be caught. Your photos show more of the sadness of losing the moment forever than of the moment itself."

Viggo was completely taken aback. Sean´s short statement was so simple and true that he couldn´t close his eyes and deny. That was how life had felt to him for a long while... that everything was over and gone before you even fully perceived it, like water or sand running through your fingers.

"Lola...." There was a low snarl in Sean´s voice as he pointed at the blurred black and white photo at page 83. Viggo, whose thoughts had been far away, was caught unaware by Sean´s subtle aggression. "Didn´t last, eh? You wiped her out more than portraying her... everything´s shattered to fragments of light and movement."

Viggo flinched, but at the painful undertone of jealousy in Sean´s voice he bit back his angry retort. And with it, the remaining resistance broke down. His shoulders sank, his features slackened, and when he spoke it was the apathetic mumble that had disqualified him as an actor in the first place.

"So what? You proved to me that I´m lonely? What´s the point?"

Viggo looked so sad and young... Sean couldn´t help it, he simply blurted out the words: "Viggo - can we go to bed? I swear I will go on talking to you." He needed to hold Viggo in his arms. Now.

"If you were a woman I would half believe you could manage that," Viggo drawled, doubtfully, but with a hint of amusement.

"I keep hearing that," Sean complained and looked hurt, quickly jumping on the opportunity to take the grave seriousness out of their conversation. "Dave said the same thing when I offered him to give him the best blowjob of his life - just a joke."

They often teased each other because of their mutual jealousy. Viggo usually teased Sean, because he couldn´t hide his jealousy in the slightest; Sean teased Viggo, because he wouldn´t admit his jealousy at all.

Viggo shook his head, disdainfully. "You sucked him off as a thank you for helping you with a poetry interpretation?"

"I told you it was just a..."

"Slut." Viggo grinned back over his shoulder, because he was already on his way to the bedroom, and thus, obviously not angry at Sean.

Sean indulged Viggo with slow, tender love-making, stroking and kissing him all over, touching and caressing every inch of his body. While never ceasing to show his tenderness and passion for Viggo with his hands, mouth, and body, he told him everything he had wanted to tell him for a very long time. He explained to him why he had evaded the confession he knew Viggo wanted to reveal to him in New Zealand - that it wasn´t indifference or coldness towards Viggo. He had honestly believed the emotions that had entered into the sex were only the result of a period confusion due to their isolation and deprivation of family and acquaintances on the island, and the almost-incestuous closeness of the Fellowship.

He went on fondling and cuddling Viggo, by and by directing a little more attention to his central parts. Softly squeezing Viggo´s balls, stroking very lightly over Viggo´s tight hole with his fingers, he painted tiny circles on the sensitive pucker that clenched involuntarily in anticipation.

Viggo relaxed, almost completely passive, letting Sean shape and form him to his delight. He sighed, moaned and shuddered with lust under Sean´s administrations. With no hurry at all, Sean continued to prepare him, to carefully open him up for him. He told him how over the years he had come to realise how much he loved Viggo, how he had tried to talk, but Viggo had shut him off.

Effortlessly, gracefully, Sean spread Viggo´s legs, sliding between them with his long, lean, naked body, rubbing against the mellow wetness of his well-moistened balls. Sean had generously spread the lube all over his groin area, loving to swimmingly smooth over his skin and along his cleft before he entered him. He finally told him how Dave and he had agreed Viggo´s photos and poetry seemed to be the only soft spot in his perfectly sheltered privacy, and that Sean should attack from there...

Viggo was already floating in a cosmos of lust. There were no single perceptions, his senses didn´t work separately; it was a big whole synaesthetic celebration of sensual pleasure. When Sean finally breached him, he seemed to touch him everywhere at once, inside and outside. His voice was prickled his skin and reverberated in his veins and cells. Sean was in him and all around him; he was lost in Sean.

"And now...?" Viggo whispered, athirst for Sean though already drowning in pure Sean-ness. "How shall we go on? How do you want to go on?"

"I want to..." Sean bent down, until his lips touched Viggo´s and he kissed him, while

Viggo passively let him, but soon couldn´t help responding to Sean´s warm, softly teasing tongue. As soon as he felt Viggo giving in, Sean contentedly drew back, his green eyes locked with Viggo´s and he closed his sentence:

"....linger."

*****

Epi (dia) logue:

„Sean - what would Dave answer, if a good friend of his, let´s say Karl, asked him who gave him the best blowjob of his life?"

"Fuck you - you wouldn´t send Karl to spy on him, Viggo! Would you?"

"Tell me the truth and I won´t need to."

"Goddammit. He deserved a reward, didn´t he?"

"Slut."

Laughter.

*****

THE END

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