…and all will come to darkness. (LOTR RPS. Viggo/Elijah. Viggo/Dom/Billy. Dom/Billy. Elijah/Orlando. Elijah/Astin. PG.)

It should be cold but it’s warm. Breath should freeze when it hits the air—but it doesn’t. the sky is clear and pale blue. Viggo knows that the blue of the sky is a lie, that it’s all water crystals and reflection and refraction. Such is art: perception. When Henry was young, that’s what Viggo called it. Mentira, instead of cielo. It drove Christine insane.

Everything about Viggo drove Christine insane. That was okay with him, especially since she didn’t demand him to change. She liked the craziness of their lives, the art, the pressure of constant conflict. He hated it, all the confrontation and the need to justify everything—but he stayed because he loved her--loves her, loves Henry, loves life and paint, loves ink and chocolate bars, loves existing in a world filled with everything he loves, even taxes.

When she left, it was surprising, but not entirely unexpected. She’d never been logical, still wasn’t, but he was quite taken aback when she wanted Henry to stay with him. So he brought Henry to sets, stopped participating in the drama and affairs. He’d never considered himself entirely removed from that sort of thing, but he never depended upon it for sustenance the way some did. The way some do. And since he expects everything to change, and never expects consistency, he's surprised but not shocked when that changes too.

=-=

Elijah’s voice is soft and pitched low, but Viggo can hear it. There’s no mistaking that accent, or the abrasive grit underneath from the habit of a pack a day. Elijah grates on Viggo’s nerves, and Viggo doesn’t know why. He’s a fucking introspective person—it’s what he does, he thinks, he creates. Thoughts of Elijah elude him.

Elijah talks through sunsets and smokes through the sunrise, standing up, makeup artists kneeling at his feet. Elijah complains about the long hours, about the food, about the music, about the beer, about the girls. Viggo isn’t the only one who notices that some of his complaints have the edge of homesickness and others the edge of loneliness. Elijah cannot be by himself.

Viggo would have taken care of that, but Orlando and Astin got there first. Viggo would have told Elijah that his eyes remind Viggo of the still pools of water inside Catholic churches in Spain—still pools of water everywhere and anywhere. Elijah’s nose is pointy and strange, and his fingers are ugly, with chewed up cuticles and bitten down nails and nicotine stains. Viggo could watch his fingers all day.

When his fingers intertwine with Orlando’s, Viggo has to look away.

=-=

Elijah with Astin doesn’t bother Viggo. Astin is round and plump and motherly, and no one can be lonely around him. But no one goes to Orlando just because they’re lonely.

Viggo watches every sunrise and every sunset, and he watches them alone. They’re beautiful and understated; they lack the lurid colors of the Los Angeles ball of fire. Viggo wants to compare it to himself, but he can’t. He has flat hair and crinkly eyes, and isn’t just understated, but is plain. He is all one color.

He does his self-portrait in the reds and oranges of a Spanish sunset, even though he wants to use blue. But blue is Elijah and Legolas, and he can’t bring himself to touch the paint with his fingers. He can’t bring himself to hold it against Orlando, either—if Viggo was an empty twenty year old boy and Orlando wanted to run those long slim fingers down Viggo’s neck, he wouldn’t be able to say no.

If Orlando wanted to run his fingernails over Viggo’s eyelashes, Viggo wouldn’t be able to say no, not even for Elijah.

=-=

Elijah’s eyes track Viggo when he walks across the room. Maybe he thinks Viggo doesn’t notice, but Viggo does notice, he always notices. Orlando is the one who doesn’t notice, and that’s probably a good thing. Billy and Dominic notice as well, and Dominic slides up to Viggo at the bar.

They exchange significant glances. Viggo knows what Dominic wants to do, and since there’s no shooting tomorrow—which means no wigs, no Feet, no glue—and even though he can think of seven thousand two reasons why they shouldn’t, Viggo orders two fingers of scotch for each of them, and asks for the bottle. He knows not to shoot good scotch—to sip and savor it—but he slams it back anyway, because he wants the burn. He wants to feel it in his toes and fingers. He wants to eradicate everything inside of him, to burn it out, to cauterize where ends are missing.

Viggo hates that Elijah’s eyes burn into him the way Christine’s used to.

Billy staggers up and throws an arm over Dominic’s shoulders, and one around Viggo’s waist. His hands are pleasantly cold, and his fingertips dig into Viggo’s muscles. He grins, first at Dominic, then at Viggo, and opens his mouth for Dominic to pour drink into it. Dominic leans over after Billy’s swallowed and they kiss; Viggo hears Elijah’s giggle and is furious. He glares at Elijah and Orlando, and is pulled into Dominic’s mouth, Billy’s fingers finding their way under his shirt.

Viggo grabs the bottle and strides away, and knows without looking behind him that Dominic and Billy are following, and Elijah is stunned.

=-=

It should be warm, but it’s cold. Viggo’s breath shouldn’t freeze when it hits the air, and he should not have to be brushing snow from his eyes. But it does, he is, and he’s concerned that his camera isn’t waterproof. It’s old, and the metals aren’t shiny, and it’s smudged with fingerprints. He stands above Elijah, stares down at him. He’s crouched, cold, shivering, puffing on one of those smelly clove cigarettes he loves. Viggo used to smoke those. Viggo also used to wear eyeliner and all black and... Well. No more any of that.

“Halfling,” says Aragorn, and when Frodo looks up and squints, Viggo presses the shutter, and Elijah giggles.

=-=



Author note: Inspired by another of Kassie’s faux-Viggotry. Reprinted from here. Don’t you wish you wrote Viggotry so that I would write you stories too?

Love Between the Words

Words drop and dip like freeze frame/
meaning evaporating as breath meets the air.
You speak and I think of Spain.
I speak and you think of taxes.
We construct each other in the dead spaces, the silence between the words.