Casual 16-20/?

Fandom: LotRips
Pairing: Marton Csokas/Viggo Mortensen
Rating: pg
Notes: Hours 16-20 of the drabble marathon. It's possible I'm getting a bit shit.
Disclaimer.

When Viggo finally awoke they sat on the living room floor and ate bowls of cereal. Also, there was orange juice, but neither bothered with coffee.

Conversation was not stilted. Viggo had the day off. Marton was still waiting for his next piece of work to come along.

He should have spent the day reading scripts. He should have spent the day trying to work out how a certain character would have said this, or the subtle nuances of deciding the part's response to that.

They sat and talked easily and inconsequentially enough, but Marton wished for a script nevertheless.

***

They didn't always stay at Viggo's, but it was often easier to do so than to stay at Marton's. Viggo would often have to go to work in the mornings, whereas Marton's obligations were more sporadic.

Every time Marton came home to an empty house it felt wrong. An empty bed, unslept in, uncrumpled. Neglected. Marton knew, even back then, right from the beginning, that it wasn't quite right. A lack of definition.

His house never accused, but it was always so obvious in its pain once ignored. Marton dismissed whatever needless parallels he knew he had created for himself.

***

Their friends didn't notice a difference, mainly because there was no observable difference. It was strange, a thought, that they spent so long seeing what wasn't there. Then, a whisper, a hint that they joked on, that they interpreted uncaring as they willed, and yet never approached the essence of. They became something else after the very first night in Viggo's bed, not a thought or a whisper, but something that had been there throughout, edifying but unremarkable, uninteresting.

Nobody smiled their crude insinuations once the laughter ran old, and there was nothing new with which to pronounce discovered intimacy.

***

Every time Viggo kissed Marton, he remembered not to worry. Every time.

Marton worried most of the time, in a perfectly healthy way, and simply as a means for regulating his life.

But every time Viggo was there, the world made that little bit of extra effort to sort itself out. It was still there, never melted away as Marton continued to hope it might, but slowly he became accustomed to his Viggo-reinforced world.

Life could fall apart without him, but then life could fall apart without any number of individuals. Marton never worked out what his contribution was, exactly.

***

Marton slammed the door, and dimly registered how Anduril clattered to the floor in the corner, reverberating from the force of the blow.

He glared at Viggo, who looked exhausted, sandwich half-eaten and tea that Marton suspected would, in all likelihood, be stone cold, thermodynamically dead. He stood there before him and screamed his fury with accusing body posture and impotent mustered will.

Could have burned, could have vented, could have powered a steam-based nation at the height of some industrial revolution.

Eyes softened. Either way, either eyes, maybe both.

"I don't understand why I'm not in love with you."

Posted by Missiedith at February 28, 2004 8:33 AM | TrackBack