LOTR RPS Fic: Feel It Like You Do

[jule1122]

Title: Feel It Like You Do
Fandom and Pairing: LOTR RPS Viggo/Orlando
Rating: PG
Summary: Orlando didn’t know how to separate Viggo and New Zealand
Author's Notes: Written for admirabile in the found_my_keys fic exchange.
admirabile’s request: Whatever the lyrics to U2's "When I Look at the World" inspires. It can be present day, set in NZ or any time in between. Drama/slight angst but a happy ending will be appreciated.
Thank you to galor5 for the beautiful banner!





The first time Orlando and Viggo kissed, they were standing in front of Viggo’s makeup mirror. Orlando was a witness to the slow creation of the now famous mirror, there most mornings when Viggo added new pictures. The border came first, then the pictures moved both in and out, covering the mirror and surrounding area. The kiss occurred when the mirror was about halfway obscured. Orlando watched as Viggo filled an empty space with a picture of Legolas laughing with Bormir. Something about the way the camera had been focused on his smile, the careful way Viggo pressed it into place told Orlando that his hopeless crush might not be so hopeless.

He didn’t think about it or even say anything to Viggo, Orlando just leaned across the space between them and kissed Viggo. Before he knew it, Viggo’s arms were around him, and the kiss turned from exploratory to passionate. They never looked back.

Sometimes when Orlando talked about filming The Lord of the Rings, he made it sound perfect. It wasn’t perfect, of course. There were days filled with exhaustion and frustration and pain. When you spend that much time with a small group of people, all desperately trying to achieve a seemingly impossible goal, there has to be tension, disappointment, and days when you wish you were anywhere else. But those things all faded away when Orlando thought about what he found in New Zealand – friendship, adventure, a sense of accomplishment, love.

Love, if Orlando was forced to choose, is what truly defined the experience for him. He fell in love the art of filmmaking, with beauty of New Zealand, and most importantly, with Viggo. New Zealand and Viggo were inseparable in Orlando’s mind. He could never think of one without the other.

Even before the kiss, they spent a lot of time together. During breaks on set, they’d talk or walk together, exploring new locations. Every location was a chance to discover something new, about themselves as much as about the landscape. They hiked, camped, and explored. Hours were spent studying the stars together while sharing stories. Some of that changed once they were together. Sometimes they opted for a quick snog in their trailer rather than a walk, and they spent more time making love under the starts than studying them, but they still discovered New Zealand together.

The end of principal filming didn’t change much. There were reshoots, some spent together, some separate. Premieres gave them excuses to be together, and endless interviews allowed Orlando to feel as though they’d never really left. Talking about his time in New Zealand again and again kept the experience so real they memories never had a chance to fade. And every memory was tied to Viggo.

Then suddenly it was over. Only it wasn’t sudden, it just felt that way. Orlando had been doing a silent countdown for months: last reshoot, last premiere in New Zealand, last premiere. When Orlando left Los Angeles, he hadn’t expected to feel so lost, to feel like he was leaving Viggo behind. Because he wasn’t. They talked about all of this, they knew staying together wouldn’t be easy, but what they had was worth it. Orlando could never explain why saying goodbye had been so hard.

In the weeks that followed, Orlando called Viggo every day. Just hearing his voice, even if it was a recorded message, was enough. He’d close his eyes and imagine they were sitting on the beach together after a long day of shooting. But they were both busy, and gradually the calls came less frequently. Reminiscing about New Zealand started to feel forced in a way that made Orlando nervous.

Kate assured Orlando that this was normal. He was moving on, she said. Rings had done it’s job, had given him his start, but now it was time to really go on to bigger and better things. But Orlando knew she took her cues from Robin. Knew they both wished it was Viggo he’d move on from. It was no secret they wished his relationship with Kate was genuinely romantic instead of a friendship made to look like more. Orlando didn’t want to let go of Viggo; he just wasn’t sure he knew how to hold on.

When Orlando fell in love with Viggo, he was not a child or selfish like some people thought. But he was young. He saw his role of Legolas as a defining moment in his life. His time in New Zealand was a beginning, the start of his career and a new life. He wanted to let go of what happened in his past and embrace his future. It was easier to think of Viggo’s life the same way. After all, Arargorn was his breakout role, too.

Intellecutally, Orlando knew Viggo had a life before New Zealand. He’d been married, had a son. But Henry wasn’t a presence in Orlando’s daily life. He was a kid he’d met on set a few times, the subject of Viggo’s stories, a face in pictures he saw when he visited Viggo’s home. When Orlando thought about Viggo, Henry rarely came to mind. If he let himself think about Viggo’s life, his experience, it weighed on him, reminding him of how little he had to offer in return. It’s easier to ignore the past.

Orlando never mentioned his fears to Viggo, but he was sure Viggo knew. As their phone calls decreased, Viggo began sending him pictures. Orlando didn’t know what to make of them. They came at irregular intervals with no explanation. Some were black and white and cracked with age. Others were glossy with discount store names and dates stamped on the back. Some were unusual and distinctive with a style Orlando recognized as Viggo’s; he knew those had been developed by hand.

What they all shared was their incomprehensibility. Unfamiliar faces stared back at him; landscapes he didn’t recognize tried to capture his imagination. The subjects of the photos were never identified and looking at them left Orlando feeling vaguely unsettled. Viggo occasionally included poems or parts of journal entries as well. In New Zealand, Viggo often shared his writing with Orlando. He would lay with eyes closed and in his head in Viggo’s lap and let the sound of Viggo’s voice wash over him. His words were magical, dancing through Orlando’s dreams.

The poems Viggo sent him now were nothing more than words on a page. Without Viggo to share them with, Orlando couldn’t find a way into them. He stared at the words written in Viggo’s familiar handwriting knowing they were filled with a meaning he just couldn’t see. Viggo never mentioned the poems or pictures when they talked, and Orlando couldn’t bring himself to ask. He continued to open the envelopes, hoping each time what he found would say something to him, but it never did, and he’d shove them into the nearest drawer or pocket.

When principal filming ended, Viggo gave Orlando a journal. It was filled with photos he’d taken while they were together as well as poems and stories he’d written. Orlando carried it with him everywhere. These pictures, these words he knew. They spoke to him, offering comfort and familiarity. When he was lonely or uncertain, he pull it out and slowly page through it. He could trace their relationship through the pictures; he could look at the two of them staring at each other instead of the camera and be back in the moment. He could read a poem and feel Viggo’s breath as he whispered in his ear before they fell asleep. Sometimes he felt like his whole life was in that journal. He didn’t bring it to Toronto.

At first, Toronto seemed like a miracle. They would be in the same city at the same time without any Herculean manipulation of their schedules. Viggo would still be filming A History of Violence while Orlando promoted Haven at the Film Festival. It couldn’t be more perfect. But as September came closer, Orlando began to see it not as the perfect rendezvous, but the perfect way to say goodbye.

Robin was surprisingly agreeable to the time he wanted to spend with Viggo, but of course, he wasn’t asking for much, just a few hours one evening. Viggo was expecting more; Orlando has promised to take of care ensuring they had as much time as possible together. He’d blinked back tears the last time they spoke after hearing how much Viggo was looking forward to seeing him. He didn’t have the courage to tell Viggo the truth, to tell him that it might be the last time they saw each other.

Orlando’s obligations ended early the night he was supposed to see Viggo so the driver took him to the set rather than the hotel. Viggo was still filming, but a production assistant guided him to Viggo’s dressing room to wait. No one seemed surprised by Orlando’s visit, and after years of reassurance by both Viggo and Robin, he wasn’t worried about who might see him. It wasn’t the press or people in the industry you had to worry about, they stressed. They wouldn’t out you unless you gave them no choice. It was the fans, the ones with agendas, either political or personal, or the ones trying to make a name for themselves, that you should be afraid of.

Orlando took one step into the room and stopped dead. He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was. It never occurred to him that Viggo’s make-up mirror wasn’t a one-time, unique creation. This mirror was nothing like the one in New Zealand; more than half the glass surface was still visible. And since Viggo had only spent weeks here, not months and years, it was much less a chronicle of the film. Most of the pictures had been taken in other places, other times.

Moving closer, Orlando realized several of the photos were of him. He scanned them quickly noting none were from New Zealand instead they had been taken during the hurried weekends they’d stolen, and the one true break they’d managed together. There was a shot of them together in London tucked between a picture of Henry and an unidentified sunset. A picture of Orlando sleeping overlapped one of David and Maria. He pressed his fingers to one of him laughing at something Viggo had said while sitting by the lake in Idaho. Next to it was a black and white picture of the same lake in winter, everything covered in snow and ice. Orlando realized he’d seen that picture before; Viggo had sent it to him a few months ago. He hadn’t recognized the lake then, had barely glanced at the picture before putting it away.

Standing there, seeing those two pictures together, Orlando suddenly realized what Viggo had been doing. He’d been sharing himself with Orlando one picture at a time. Each photo was a piece him, maybe of his past or of his dreams, something he wanted to share with Orlando. And Orlando had been too blind to see it, too scared to really look. He wondered if his silence had felt like a rejection. He closed his eyes and willed himself to find a way to fix this.

He opened them and looked at the mirror again, this time as a whole. For the first time, he could see how he and Viggo’s lives fit together. How what they had weaved its way in and out of every part of their lives. Orlando took a deep breath and felt the world open to him again. He finally understood that New Zealand may have brought them together, but it didn’t bind them together. Love did that.

Orlando was torn between anger and happiness. He’d wasted so much time worrying about how Viggo was slipping away that he hadn’t noticed Viggo reaching for him again and again. At the same time, the weight of uncertainty and loss was finally gone, and he wanted to sing and shout the joy of that. He would focus on the joy, share that with Viggo, who had so much more faith than he had.

A hand on his shoulder startled him. “See something you like?” Viggo asked.

Orlando turned to him, wanting nothing more than to throw himself in Viggo’s arms. The uncertainty in Viggo’s eyes stopped him momentarily. Orlando knew this was his chance to make things right. He looked from the mirror to Viggo and smiled. Then he kissed him. Viggo sighed into the kiss, pulling Orlando into a tight hug. They kissed again, and they never looked back.

Comments

[sveta-111.livejournal.com]

I like this story!
Thank you.

[jule1122.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you enjoyed it!