Uncomplicated
Feb. 3rd, 2004 08:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hackthis_archiveOkay, so I totally thought today was my girl’s birthday, but apparently I’m early by two days. (My bad). Nevertheless, sitting on this story any longer is going to give me an aneurysm. So.
To![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ethrosdemon, at least I didn't have to sacrifice any goats this time: Happy Birthday, baby girl.
LOTRips
All my friends and lovers shine like the sun
I just turn and walk away*
Elijah’s wants are very simple:
- He wants to be with Dom.
- He wants to fuck Viggo.
- He wants to be friends with both of them.
This should not be as complicated as it is -- but then it wouldn’t be life.
*
It’s entirely too early for anyone to be awake, even hobbits and men, and when they finally leave Wellington, Elijah is never getting up before noon again.
“Fuck,” he says, attempting to extricate himself from the sticky sheets. The flat sheet refuses to unwrap itself from his leg, and he kicks at it helplessly. A little help would not go unappreciated, but his companion only smirks and chuckles, pointedly doing nothing to assist in his predicament.
“So glad I can amuse you,” he says as he continues to fight with the damp linen.
He rolls to the side, trying to slip out of the sheet’s hold, and nearly winds up face first on the floor. He’s saved from his precarious position by a long arm reaching out and pulling him back into the mattress, and consequently back into the wet spot.
He grunts at the weight of Viggo’s forearm across his stomach, holding him against the sweaty fitted sheet.
“In a rush to go somewhere?” Viggo asks as he lounges alongside Elijah, completely ignoring his struggle.
“No,” Elijah says, “but that’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
Elijah narrows his eyes as Viggo retracts his arm. “It‘s too early to be philosophical. Are you going to help me or what?”
“Or what indeed.” Viggo brushes a stray piece of hair behind his ear and considers Elijah for several seconds.
The thoroughness of his gaze does nothing to assuage Elijah’s discomfort. He feels far more exposed under Viggo’s appraisal than he does lying naked on top of damp, rapidly cooling sheets.
Elijah’s dick twitches, and his stomach rumbles. Viggo chuckles, again, and then pushes himself into a sitting position. Elijah blinks as Viggo leans forward and brushes a dry kiss across his forehead.
The mattress springs squeak as Viggo clambers off the bed, and the straight line of his back reminds Elijah of the skyscrapers in downtown LA. He makes a strangled noise as Viggo wanders off towards the bathroom, and then his throat seizes up slightly as Viggo scratches at his lower back. Viggo’s got a really nice ass; it's fuller than Dom's, and mentally Elijah berates himself for comparing Dom and Viggo. It’s not healthy.
“You’re just going to leave me like this?” he demands.
“Everyone has to learn how to fend for themselves,” Viggo says.
“Then you can explain to PJ why I’m late,” Elijah hollers as the bathroom door closes.
He yanks at the sheets more but only serves to make things worse.
*
No matter where they go together, Dom and Elijah pick at each other. They pick at the glue on each other’s hairlines and the lint on each other’s clothes. They pick at each other’s music collections and vast quantities of tee shirts with snarky sayings. Billy watches them in amusement. Sean shakes his head and inquires as to the last time either one did their laundry. Orlando and Liv often laugh, and even Viggo seems amused. The lovely thing about all this nitpicking though, is that while Elijah is picking at Dom, he’s not thinking about who Viggo went home with last night, and if that’s why Orli’s moving a little slow this morning.
It’s not jealousy. That would be too complicated. It’s just curiosity, like wondering why Dom never notices the looks that Billy gives him.
*
Elijah and Viggo only fuck every now and then; normally, Elijah goes home with Dom. It’s not quite a relationship, but there’s something between he and Dom that’s far more complicated than Elijah would like to admit. Being with Viggo is pure lust; being with Dom is a messy amalgamation of lust and like and friendship and other stuff.
Where Viggo’s all sharp edges and weird crevices, Dom is simple and safe. Viggo is ‘dark and mysterious’ and other Harlequin romance novel crap; Dom makes no bones of how he feels about Elijah. In the wee hours of the morning, he curls around Elijah like he’s a favored stuffed animal and says he’s in love.
On the nights that Elijah finds his way to Viggo’s place, he tells Dom he unplugged the phone because he desperately needed to sleep or be alone. Dom nods his head as though he understands, but sometimes Elijah can see the hurt, and afterwards Billy will give him dirty looks in the canteen as though he knows something amiss.
When he’s cornered, Elijah shakes off the inquiries with a good-natured, “Fuck off.”
*
“Fuck,” is generally the only coherent thing Elijah can say in the sexual aftermath. Viggo finds his repetition amusing or, if not amusing, at least inoffensive. Viggo doesn’t expect to cuddle or be petted. More often than not he just goes to sleep; every now and then though, they talk. The conversation inevitably goes something like this:
“Just fuck?” Viggo says. “That’s all I get?”
Elijah sighs and rubs at the sleep in the corner of his eye. He needs a smoke. He needs a shower. He needs to stop getting stuck in the fucking wet spot. “’That was the best sex I’ve ever had, and you’ve ruined me for the rest of the human race,’" he says. "Does that work better for you?”
“As long as you‘re enjoying yourself,” Viggo says.
“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t,” Elijah reminds himself.
“Really, I thought it was just my sparkling personality and sharp wit.”
“No, you’re mistaking yourself for Orli again.”
“I would never be mistaken for an Elf,” Viggo corrects, as Elijah extracts himself from long arms and legs far hairier than his own.
“I never would have guessed." Elijah slips off the bed and heads for the shower.
“I want to take some photographs of you,” Viggo calls as Elijah flips on the bathroom light.
“Cool,” Elijah says. He shuts the door behind him, and exhales deeply at the feel of the cold tiles against the soles of his feet. He really wishes he’d brought his cloves in the bathroom. He could really use them right about now.
He wonders randomly what Dom is doing and how he slept last night. He wonders if Billy drove him home from the pub. He wonders about Orli and Bean and Sean, if they know about what’s going on in Viggo’s little house in the hills. Not that they would ask, not that anyone would. Even Viggo never asks about Dominic, which is good, because Elijah’s not sure what he would say if Viggo did.
Sometimes though, when it’s really late at night or far too early in the morning, Elijah wonders how many hobbits and elves can say they’ve slept with the king.
*
Elijah has no idea what he wants, but he’s content with the way things are and sees no reason to rock the boat. And yet, in the cold light of Wellington mornings, Elijah can see that he’s putting himself in a rather compromising position. He’s confusing his friends and his lovers and sooner or later it’s going to come back and bite him on the ass. Every time he sees Dominic and Viggo in the same room his stomach tightens like he’s got an ulcer, and he wonders what the hell he thinks he’s doing.
At his age the answer is obvious: he’s just following his hormones and fucking everything that walks. Hannah laughs whenever he talks about the mess his love life has become, but it’s not as though he wants to settle down and start a little commune with Dom and Viggo; he just wants everything to be uncomplicated and easy.
Except it’s not.
Elijah and Dom are too much alike. They share too many of the same habits and the same clothing tastes. They like the same games and the same music. They both talk too much and favor the right side of the bed. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out where one ends and other begins.
They like each other, and they’re good friends, except their friendship is not as simple as it should be. It’s continually being complicated by emotions and feelings and stuff that’s sticky and oppressive. They’re together too much, and Elijah needs something simple; this is what draws him to Viggo. Viggo is uncomplicated. He likes art; he loves his son; he speaks little and says a great deal. He’s a bit philosophical and introspective, but he’s a good man. He doesn’t make things harder than they need to be.
This is important.
Elijah’s spent too much time around too many people not to know a basic truth: even the simplest things can get fucked up.
In his heart, he knows it’s only a matter of time.
*
Saying goodbye to Viggo at the end of shooting is easier than Elijah thinks it will be. It’s not a goodbye insomuch as it’s an ‘I’ll see you back in the States’ and ’Maybe we’ll have lunch at that wicked burrito place in Los Feliz.’ It’s less of a farewell and more of an ‘I’ll see you soon.’
Elijah’s not foolish; he doesn’t expect their arrangement to continue once they‘re back in California, but, just maybe, he might’ve hoped that Viggo would suggest otherwise. But he sees the side-glances between Viggo and Orli and even Viggo and Bean, and maybe Viggo’s not as simple as Elijah would like to believe. He tells himself that he never had the right to be jealous and that he genuinely likes Viggo, because he does. No matter what else is happening in their lives, when they’re together things don’t seem as complex; Elijah doesn’t want to lose that. He tells himself that all the lying and sneaking around really wasn’t that difficult to manage. He pretends that the mess of relationships on set was actually healthy and normal and nothing different than what’s happened on any other movie he’s worked on. Except that saying goodbye to Dominic is nearly impossible, and maybe it really is love that makes Elijah say, “Come to LA with me.”
When Dominic says yes, Elijah’s slightly shocked, but he smiles and gives the appropriately enthusiastic response. It’s only later, when he’s packing up his house and can’t figure how the hell he acquired so many clothes that the reality begins to sink in, and he finds himself mired in mismatched sneakers muttering ‘fuck’ over and over again.
*
Life with Dominic isn‘t that simple, but they make do by living in his mom‘s guest house, hanging around with Elijah‘s friends, and going out at night. Dom makes Elijah happy, and he thinks that‘s the best thing he can ask for, especially at their age, when everyone else seems so discontent.
It‘s the release of the films make things complex.
They can go here, they can’t go there; people talk, there’s pointing and whispering and all kinds of insanity with the fans. The whole business makes Elijah nostalgic for New Zealand, and for a time when he thought things were easier. He knows they weren’t, but his memories all have a softness about them, like the edges have been rubbed away.
When things become too much, he calls Viggo and goes down to Venice. It’s a tiny little section of LA that’s a world unto itself: rows of clapboard houses, muscle men working out on the beach and pretty people on roller blades who believe that all that counts is the immediacy of the next rep or the next trick on wheels.
Elijah doesn’t really discuss his claustrophobia with Dom; he just does what he needs to do. Dom has adjustment problems of his own: homesickness, going for auditions, people who want a hobbit of their own. Elijah has no desire to worry him over something that can’t really be solved. They would just keep talking until he got a headache or an argument started and Elijah can do without all the drama. By visiting Viggo, by being with someone who doesn’t really have any expectations, Elijah doesn’t have to disrupt anybody's life.
He is happy enough, and he loves Dom; he just wants his own space.
*
The tiling on Viggo’s kitchen table is cracked, and there are burn stains from where he’s put out his cigarettes in lieu of using an ashtray.
Elijah scrapes at one of the burns with a fingernail, only glancing up when Viggo slides a mug full of steaming black tea in front of him.
The steam is long gone by the time Elijah gets around to saying anything. “It’s fucking awful,” he admits.
Viggo perches on a three-legged stool, considering him carefully, mug firmly in hand. He’s wearing paint-spattered coveralls that Elijah remembers from Wellington, and he’s got paint smeared in his hair. He looks relaxed, and free, and everything Elijah doesn’t really feel anymore. “I thought that this was what I wanted, but this relationship thing is hard, and --”
Viggo places his tea on the counter and shakes a cigarette out of his pack of American Spirits. “You’re young.”
Elijah frowns and automatically pats himself down for his own. “That’s not what I meant.” He takes one of Viggo’s proffered cigarettes when he can’t find his cloves. “It‘s just -- it’s not easy being happy, is it?
Viggo exhales a thin plume of smoke and ashes in his sink. “No, it’s not.”
Elijah stares at the burning ember of his cigarette. “I thought it would be easier.”
“Nothing is ever as easy as people think it is.”
“So what am I -- what do people do?”
Viggo slips his cigarette into his left hand and picks up his tea. “You simplify.”
*
“I’m not abandoning you,” he says, again, fastening the second latch on his suitcase, and making sure it’s secure. The tiny snick echoes in his eardrums, and the dark blue Samsonite case lands with a thud as he slides it off the end of the bed and onto the floor.
“Not abandoning me, yeah? What the hell would you call it then?” Dominic asks, shifting in the doorway; anger radiating from every pore.
For such a smallish person, Dom’s limbs seem to fill entire spaces like someone twice his size. The effect is claustrophobic, and Elijah wonders when being with Dom started feeling like a big trap.
He tugs on the lapels of his green blazer, once, twice, and then begins patting himself down for his cigarettes.
“I’m just going away for a bit,” he repeats; knowing it‘s not the real truth.
“Right. You decide to shove off to New York after I come here to be with you.” The palpable anger makes Elijah feel slightly queasy, and this, he thinks, is why he needs to leave. Too much anger; too much emotion; too much of everything, making everything too complicated.
Being a part of a whole like this is just too hard.
“I know you did.“ Elijah asked Dominic to come; he never asked him to stay. He doesn’t bother to say this, but it doesn’t stop him from thinking it. “That’s why I can’t ask you to come with me now.”
“You could ask me, but you won’t,” Dom corrects.
Elijah doesn’t bother to deny the accusation. “Dom, don’t be like this. I just need to try something new.”
“You mean you need to fuck someone new.”
Elijah thinks of Viggo, but he knows better. “No, that’s not it. I just, I’ve lived here forever. I need to get out, to find something less complicated.”
“Fuck. You.”
Dom leaves in a flurry of tee shirts and rubber soles beating against the floorboards, and Elijah swears as the front door slams shut behind him.
He‘ll make it up to Dom somehow, but it’ll take time. They’re complicated and probably always will be, and Elijah just doesn’t need that right now. Correction: he just can’t handle it. He loves Dom, but everything with them is too much work. He needs someone who’ll just let him be whomever he wants to be.
He picks up the phone to call Viggo and ask him to drive him to the airport.
*
The radio is tuned to NPR when Elijah finishes loading his suitcase into the trunk and slides into the passenger seat. Viggo’s car smells of stale cigarette smoke, bare feet and a faint whiff of turpentine that never seems to go away even though Viggo doesn’t bothers to roll up any of the windows. The car is a death trap waiting to happen, and Elijah loves riding around in it, because it screams ‘fuck you’ to the entire LA establishment of money and glamour. Of course, Viggo has another car, a safer car, for driving Henry around in, but normally, he drives his broken-down lemon.
There’s a smear of bluish-gray paint on Viggo’s cheek, and he doesn’t say anything as they drive out of the hills and head for the 405. Elijah opens the glove compartment to raid Viggo’s stash of cigarettes without a pretense of searching for his own, and he makes a great show of lighting two as a way of keeping Viggo from saying anything and breaking the mood.
The moderator on the radio drones on about the current administration, and Elijah begins to think that maybe New York isn’t far enough. When he catches Viggo glancing at him, he mutters something crass and shifts in his seat to look out the window.
He chain-smokes more cigarettes than he can bother to count, and they’re passing the exit for the 10 when he finally breaks.
“What the fuck does it take?!” he shouts more to himself than anyone else. There’s a blue Ford passing by on their right and the woman stares at him for a second, forcing him to turn away, back towards Viggo and the conversation he doesn’t want to have.
Elijah’s fingers tangle momentarily in his hair, and he hates feeling his age. “It’s like it’s never going to be simple enough, or easy enough; it doesn’t matter what I do. It’s like life is this thing and love makes it worse. Being single isn’t sounding any fucking better. And I’m going, but what the fuck am I expecting to find, and god fucking dammit, now what?” He glares at Viggo as though he’s supposed to have the answers and is duly mollified when Viggo cuts him a brief glance.
As the silence is prolonged, however, Elijah can feel the wisps of anger slipping away and being replaced by fear.
Viggo always has the answers. Elijah depends on this.
He tosses the butt of the cigarette out the window and watches as it’s whipped into traffic. He plays with the wheel on his lighter, watching the sparks disappear into nothingness. He feels exhausted, but it’s not as though he’s been having trouble sleeping. He just feels like life is wearing him down, like all those worn edges he was so into are really from life beating him into submission.
The wind whipping through the inside of the car isn’t loud enough to cover up his sigh, and he jumps slightly when Viggo’s hand comes to rest on his leg. It’s comfortable in a way that most things don’t seem to be for Elijah these days.
“It really doesn’t get any easier, does it?” Elijah asks, lighting yet another cigarette and passing it to the side. He misses the warm weight of Viggo’s hand when it disappears.
“No.” Viggo inhales and cuts a quick glance at him, again, attempting to keep one eye on the road at all times.
“I kind of thought you were lying.”
Elijah doesn’t have to see the smirk to know it’s there.
Viggo takes a long drag on his cigarette as they drive past the exit for the Marina. “You thought I was lying to you?”
“Okay, not really. I just kind of hoped you were wrong.”
“It’s been known to happen,” Viggo admits.
“No shit,” Elijah says.
The car swerves slightly and he ducks as Viggo attempts to swat at him. The cars around them honk angrily, and Elijah can’t help but chuckle at Viggo’s poor aim, which he knows is deliberate.
The man on the radio drones on and on as Elijah watches the city pass by. There’s one cigarette left in the pack, and Elijah glances at Viggo, who’s now got both hands on the wheel and is smoking his cigarette by holding it between his lips and exhaling through his nose. He looks like a rabid bull.
The minutes fall away, and eventually Elijah reaches out and changes the station to FM. He’ll miss KCRW in New York, but it’s not as though he can’t get access through the web. Kinky’s ‘The Headphonist’ crackles through Viggo’s speakers as Elijah shakes the last cigarette out of the yellow packaging. He’ll send Viggo a carton when he gets where he’s going.
“You just have to take it as it comes,” Viggo says as Elijah sparks up, again.
Elijah thinks the first inhalation is always the best, and he exhales slowly, squinting as the smoke blows back in his eyes. “What about, like, you know, other people?”
Viggo’s thoughtful enough not to answer right away. “Dom has to take it as it comes, too.”
Elijah doesn’t think they’ve ever mentioned Dom by name before. It feels strange, but not in a bad way.
“What if it doesn’t work out?” he asks.
Viggo tosses his cigarette out the widow. “Then you move on.”
Elijah nods as they come up to the turnoff for LAX. He knows all about moving on. For the first time in twenty-two years he’ll truly be on his own. He thinks it’s well past time.
He ashes out the window and shakes his head as the ash blows back, all over his shirt. “It’s not easy -- this life thing, is it?” he asks, already knowing the answer.
Viggo shrugs as they drive past the huge letters welcoming them to Los Angeles International. “No one ever said it was.”
-end-
Happy (Early) Birthday,ethrosdemon.
+ *Quote from ‘All My Friends’ by Counting Crows.
+ Betas, improvements and all around support fromlalejandra and lux__aeterna. Remaining snafus are mine.
To
ethrosdemon, at least I didn't have to sacrifice any goats this time: Happy Birthday, baby girl.LOTRips
I just turn and walk away*
Elijah’s wants are very simple:
- He wants to be with Dom.
- He wants to fuck Viggo.
- He wants to be friends with both of them.
This should not be as complicated as it is -- but then it wouldn’t be life.
It’s entirely too early for anyone to be awake, even hobbits and men, and when they finally leave Wellington, Elijah is never getting up before noon again.
“Fuck,” he says, attempting to extricate himself from the sticky sheets. The flat sheet refuses to unwrap itself from his leg, and he kicks at it helplessly. A little help would not go unappreciated, but his companion only smirks and chuckles, pointedly doing nothing to assist in his predicament.
“So glad I can amuse you,” he says as he continues to fight with the damp linen.
He rolls to the side, trying to slip out of the sheet’s hold, and nearly winds up face first on the floor. He’s saved from his precarious position by a long arm reaching out and pulling him back into the mattress, and consequently back into the wet spot.
He grunts at the weight of Viggo’s forearm across his stomach, holding him against the sweaty fitted sheet.
“In a rush to go somewhere?” Viggo asks as he lounges alongside Elijah, completely ignoring his struggle.
“No,” Elijah says, “but that’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
Elijah narrows his eyes as Viggo retracts his arm. “It‘s too early to be philosophical. Are you going to help me or what?”
“Or what indeed.” Viggo brushes a stray piece of hair behind his ear and considers Elijah for several seconds.
The thoroughness of his gaze does nothing to assuage Elijah’s discomfort. He feels far more exposed under Viggo’s appraisal than he does lying naked on top of damp, rapidly cooling sheets.
Elijah’s dick twitches, and his stomach rumbles. Viggo chuckles, again, and then pushes himself into a sitting position. Elijah blinks as Viggo leans forward and brushes a dry kiss across his forehead.
The mattress springs squeak as Viggo clambers off the bed, and the straight line of his back reminds Elijah of the skyscrapers in downtown LA. He makes a strangled noise as Viggo wanders off towards the bathroom, and then his throat seizes up slightly as Viggo scratches at his lower back. Viggo’s got a really nice ass; it's fuller than Dom's, and mentally Elijah berates himself for comparing Dom and Viggo. It’s not healthy.
“You’re just going to leave me like this?” he demands.
“Everyone has to learn how to fend for themselves,” Viggo says.
“Then you can explain to PJ why I’m late,” Elijah hollers as the bathroom door closes.
He yanks at the sheets more but only serves to make things worse.
No matter where they go together, Dom and Elijah pick at each other. They pick at the glue on each other’s hairlines and the lint on each other’s clothes. They pick at each other’s music collections and vast quantities of tee shirts with snarky sayings. Billy watches them in amusement. Sean shakes his head and inquires as to the last time either one did their laundry. Orlando and Liv often laugh, and even Viggo seems amused. The lovely thing about all this nitpicking though, is that while Elijah is picking at Dom, he’s not thinking about who Viggo went home with last night, and if that’s why Orli’s moving a little slow this morning.
It’s not jealousy. That would be too complicated. It’s just curiosity, like wondering why Dom never notices the looks that Billy gives him.
Elijah and Viggo only fuck every now and then; normally, Elijah goes home with Dom. It’s not quite a relationship, but there’s something between he and Dom that’s far more complicated than Elijah would like to admit. Being with Viggo is pure lust; being with Dom is a messy amalgamation of lust and like and friendship and other stuff.
Where Viggo’s all sharp edges and weird crevices, Dom is simple and safe. Viggo is ‘dark and mysterious’ and other Harlequin romance novel crap; Dom makes no bones of how he feels about Elijah. In the wee hours of the morning, he curls around Elijah like he’s a favored stuffed animal and says he’s in love.
On the nights that Elijah finds his way to Viggo’s place, he tells Dom he unplugged the phone because he desperately needed to sleep or be alone. Dom nods his head as though he understands, but sometimes Elijah can see the hurt, and afterwards Billy will give him dirty looks in the canteen as though he knows something amiss.
When he’s cornered, Elijah shakes off the inquiries with a good-natured, “Fuck off.”
“Fuck,” is generally the only coherent thing Elijah can say in the sexual aftermath. Viggo finds his repetition amusing or, if not amusing, at least inoffensive. Viggo doesn’t expect to cuddle or be petted. More often than not he just goes to sleep; every now and then though, they talk. The conversation inevitably goes something like this:
“Just fuck?” Viggo says. “That’s all I get?”
Elijah sighs and rubs at the sleep in the corner of his eye. He needs a smoke. He needs a shower. He needs to stop getting stuck in the fucking wet spot. “’That was the best sex I’ve ever had, and you’ve ruined me for the rest of the human race,’" he says. "Does that work better for you?”
“As long as you‘re enjoying yourself,” Viggo says.
“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t,” Elijah reminds himself.
“Really, I thought it was just my sparkling personality and sharp wit.”
“No, you’re mistaking yourself for Orli again.”
“I would never be mistaken for an Elf,” Viggo corrects, as Elijah extracts himself from long arms and legs far hairier than his own.
“I never would have guessed." Elijah slips off the bed and heads for the shower.
“I want to take some photographs of you,” Viggo calls as Elijah flips on the bathroom light.
“Cool,” Elijah says. He shuts the door behind him, and exhales deeply at the feel of the cold tiles against the soles of his feet. He really wishes he’d brought his cloves in the bathroom. He could really use them right about now.
He wonders randomly what Dom is doing and how he slept last night. He wonders if Billy drove him home from the pub. He wonders about Orli and Bean and Sean, if they know about what’s going on in Viggo’s little house in the hills. Not that they would ask, not that anyone would. Even Viggo never asks about Dominic, which is good, because Elijah’s not sure what he would say if Viggo did.
Sometimes though, when it’s really late at night or far too early in the morning, Elijah wonders how many hobbits and elves can say they’ve slept with the king.
Elijah has no idea what he wants, but he’s content with the way things are and sees no reason to rock the boat. And yet, in the cold light of Wellington mornings, Elijah can see that he’s putting himself in a rather compromising position. He’s confusing his friends and his lovers and sooner or later it’s going to come back and bite him on the ass. Every time he sees Dominic and Viggo in the same room his stomach tightens like he’s got an ulcer, and he wonders what the hell he thinks he’s doing.
At his age the answer is obvious: he’s just following his hormones and fucking everything that walks. Hannah laughs whenever he talks about the mess his love life has become, but it’s not as though he wants to settle down and start a little commune with Dom and Viggo; he just wants everything to be uncomplicated and easy.
Except it’s not.
Elijah and Dom are too much alike. They share too many of the same habits and the same clothing tastes. They like the same games and the same music. They both talk too much and favor the right side of the bed. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out where one ends and other begins.
They like each other, and they’re good friends, except their friendship is not as simple as it should be. It’s continually being complicated by emotions and feelings and stuff that’s sticky and oppressive. They’re together too much, and Elijah needs something simple; this is what draws him to Viggo. Viggo is uncomplicated. He likes art; he loves his son; he speaks little and says a great deal. He’s a bit philosophical and introspective, but he’s a good man. He doesn’t make things harder than they need to be.
This is important.
Elijah’s spent too much time around too many people not to know a basic truth: even the simplest things can get fucked up.
In his heart, he knows it’s only a matter of time.
Saying goodbye to Viggo at the end of shooting is easier than Elijah thinks it will be. It’s not a goodbye insomuch as it’s an ‘I’ll see you back in the States’ and ’Maybe we’ll have lunch at that wicked burrito place in Los Feliz.’ It’s less of a farewell and more of an ‘I’ll see you soon.’
Elijah’s not foolish; he doesn’t expect their arrangement to continue once they‘re back in California, but, just maybe, he might’ve hoped that Viggo would suggest otherwise. But he sees the side-glances between Viggo and Orli and even Viggo and Bean, and maybe Viggo’s not as simple as Elijah would like to believe. He tells himself that he never had the right to be jealous and that he genuinely likes Viggo, because he does. No matter what else is happening in their lives, when they’re together things don’t seem as complex; Elijah doesn’t want to lose that. He tells himself that all the lying and sneaking around really wasn’t that difficult to manage. He pretends that the mess of relationships on set was actually healthy and normal and nothing different than what’s happened on any other movie he’s worked on. Except that saying goodbye to Dominic is nearly impossible, and maybe it really is love that makes Elijah say, “Come to LA with me.”
When Dominic says yes, Elijah’s slightly shocked, but he smiles and gives the appropriately enthusiastic response. It’s only later, when he’s packing up his house and can’t figure how the hell he acquired so many clothes that the reality begins to sink in, and he finds himself mired in mismatched sneakers muttering ‘fuck’ over and over again.
Life with Dominic isn‘t that simple, but they make do by living in his mom‘s guest house, hanging around with Elijah‘s friends, and going out at night. Dom makes Elijah happy, and he thinks that‘s the best thing he can ask for, especially at their age, when everyone else seems so discontent.
It‘s the release of the films make things complex.
They can go here, they can’t go there; people talk, there’s pointing and whispering and all kinds of insanity with the fans. The whole business makes Elijah nostalgic for New Zealand, and for a time when he thought things were easier. He knows they weren’t, but his memories all have a softness about them, like the edges have been rubbed away.
When things become too much, he calls Viggo and goes down to Venice. It’s a tiny little section of LA that’s a world unto itself: rows of clapboard houses, muscle men working out on the beach and pretty people on roller blades who believe that all that counts is the immediacy of the next rep or the next trick on wheels.
Elijah doesn’t really discuss his claustrophobia with Dom; he just does what he needs to do. Dom has adjustment problems of his own: homesickness, going for auditions, people who want a hobbit of their own. Elijah has no desire to worry him over something that can’t really be solved. They would just keep talking until he got a headache or an argument started and Elijah can do without all the drama. By visiting Viggo, by being with someone who doesn’t really have any expectations, Elijah doesn’t have to disrupt anybody's life.
He is happy enough, and he loves Dom; he just wants his own space.
The tiling on Viggo’s kitchen table is cracked, and there are burn stains from where he’s put out his cigarettes in lieu of using an ashtray.
Elijah scrapes at one of the burns with a fingernail, only glancing up when Viggo slides a mug full of steaming black tea in front of him.
The steam is long gone by the time Elijah gets around to saying anything. “It’s fucking awful,” he admits.
Viggo perches on a three-legged stool, considering him carefully, mug firmly in hand. He’s wearing paint-spattered coveralls that Elijah remembers from Wellington, and he’s got paint smeared in his hair. He looks relaxed, and free, and everything Elijah doesn’t really feel anymore. “I thought that this was what I wanted, but this relationship thing is hard, and --”
Viggo places his tea on the counter and shakes a cigarette out of his pack of American Spirits. “You’re young.”
Elijah frowns and automatically pats himself down for his own. “That’s not what I meant.” He takes one of Viggo’s proffered cigarettes when he can’t find his cloves. “It‘s just -- it’s not easy being happy, is it?
Viggo exhales a thin plume of smoke and ashes in his sink. “No, it’s not.”
Elijah stares at the burning ember of his cigarette. “I thought it would be easier.”
“Nothing is ever as easy as people think it is.”
“So what am I -- what do people do?”
Viggo slips his cigarette into his left hand and picks up his tea. “You simplify.”
“I’m not abandoning you,” he says, again, fastening the second latch on his suitcase, and making sure it’s secure. The tiny snick echoes in his eardrums, and the dark blue Samsonite case lands with a thud as he slides it off the end of the bed and onto the floor.
“Not abandoning me, yeah? What the hell would you call it then?” Dominic asks, shifting in the doorway; anger radiating from every pore.
For such a smallish person, Dom’s limbs seem to fill entire spaces like someone twice his size. The effect is claustrophobic, and Elijah wonders when being with Dom started feeling like a big trap.
He tugs on the lapels of his green blazer, once, twice, and then begins patting himself down for his cigarettes.
“I’m just going away for a bit,” he repeats; knowing it‘s not the real truth.
“Right. You decide to shove off to New York after I come here to be with you.” The palpable anger makes Elijah feel slightly queasy, and this, he thinks, is why he needs to leave. Too much anger; too much emotion; too much of everything, making everything too complicated.
Being a part of a whole like this is just too hard.
“I know you did.“ Elijah asked Dominic to come; he never asked him to stay. He doesn’t bother to say this, but it doesn’t stop him from thinking it. “That’s why I can’t ask you to come with me now.”
“You could ask me, but you won’t,” Dom corrects.
Elijah doesn’t bother to deny the accusation. “Dom, don’t be like this. I just need to try something new.”
“You mean you need to fuck someone new.”
Elijah thinks of Viggo, but he knows better. “No, that’s not it. I just, I’ve lived here forever. I need to get out, to find something less complicated.”
“Fuck. You.”
Dom leaves in a flurry of tee shirts and rubber soles beating against the floorboards, and Elijah swears as the front door slams shut behind him.
He‘ll make it up to Dom somehow, but it’ll take time. They’re complicated and probably always will be, and Elijah just doesn’t need that right now. Correction: he just can’t handle it. He loves Dom, but everything with them is too much work. He needs someone who’ll just let him be whomever he wants to be.
He picks up the phone to call Viggo and ask him to drive him to the airport.
The radio is tuned to NPR when Elijah finishes loading his suitcase into the trunk and slides into the passenger seat. Viggo’s car smells of stale cigarette smoke, bare feet and a faint whiff of turpentine that never seems to go away even though Viggo doesn’t bothers to roll up any of the windows. The car is a death trap waiting to happen, and Elijah loves riding around in it, because it screams ‘fuck you’ to the entire LA establishment of money and glamour. Of course, Viggo has another car, a safer car, for driving Henry around in, but normally, he drives his broken-down lemon.
There’s a smear of bluish-gray paint on Viggo’s cheek, and he doesn’t say anything as they drive out of the hills and head for the 405. Elijah opens the glove compartment to raid Viggo’s stash of cigarettes without a pretense of searching for his own, and he makes a great show of lighting two as a way of keeping Viggo from saying anything and breaking the mood.
The moderator on the radio drones on about the current administration, and Elijah begins to think that maybe New York isn’t far enough. When he catches Viggo glancing at him, he mutters something crass and shifts in his seat to look out the window.
He chain-smokes more cigarettes than he can bother to count, and they’re passing the exit for the 10 when he finally breaks.
“What the fuck does it take?!” he shouts more to himself than anyone else. There’s a blue Ford passing by on their right and the woman stares at him for a second, forcing him to turn away, back towards Viggo and the conversation he doesn’t want to have.
Elijah’s fingers tangle momentarily in his hair, and he hates feeling his age. “It’s like it’s never going to be simple enough, or easy enough; it doesn’t matter what I do. It’s like life is this thing and love makes it worse. Being single isn’t sounding any fucking better. And I’m going, but what the fuck am I expecting to find, and god fucking dammit, now what?” He glares at Viggo as though he’s supposed to have the answers and is duly mollified when Viggo cuts him a brief glance.
As the silence is prolonged, however, Elijah can feel the wisps of anger slipping away and being replaced by fear.
Viggo always has the answers. Elijah depends on this.
He tosses the butt of the cigarette out the window and watches as it’s whipped into traffic. He plays with the wheel on his lighter, watching the sparks disappear into nothingness. He feels exhausted, but it’s not as though he’s been having trouble sleeping. He just feels like life is wearing him down, like all those worn edges he was so into are really from life beating him into submission.
The wind whipping through the inside of the car isn’t loud enough to cover up his sigh, and he jumps slightly when Viggo’s hand comes to rest on his leg. It’s comfortable in a way that most things don’t seem to be for Elijah these days.
“It really doesn’t get any easier, does it?” Elijah asks, lighting yet another cigarette and passing it to the side. He misses the warm weight of Viggo’s hand when it disappears.
“No.” Viggo inhales and cuts a quick glance at him, again, attempting to keep one eye on the road at all times.
“I kind of thought you were lying.”
Elijah doesn’t have to see the smirk to know it’s there.
Viggo takes a long drag on his cigarette as they drive past the exit for the Marina. “You thought I was lying to you?”
“Okay, not really. I just kind of hoped you were wrong.”
“It’s been known to happen,” Viggo admits.
“No shit,” Elijah says.
The car swerves slightly and he ducks as Viggo attempts to swat at him. The cars around them honk angrily, and Elijah can’t help but chuckle at Viggo’s poor aim, which he knows is deliberate.
The man on the radio drones on and on as Elijah watches the city pass by. There’s one cigarette left in the pack, and Elijah glances at Viggo, who’s now got both hands on the wheel and is smoking his cigarette by holding it between his lips and exhaling through his nose. He looks like a rabid bull.
The minutes fall away, and eventually Elijah reaches out and changes the station to FM. He’ll miss KCRW in New York, but it’s not as though he can’t get access through the web. Kinky’s ‘The Headphonist’ crackles through Viggo’s speakers as Elijah shakes the last cigarette out of the yellow packaging. He’ll send Viggo a carton when he gets where he’s going.
“You just have to take it as it comes,” Viggo says as Elijah sparks up, again.
Elijah thinks the first inhalation is always the best, and he exhales slowly, squinting as the smoke blows back in his eyes. “What about, like, you know, other people?”
Viggo’s thoughtful enough not to answer right away. “Dom has to take it as it comes, too.”
Elijah doesn’t think they’ve ever mentioned Dom by name before. It feels strange, but not in a bad way.
“What if it doesn’t work out?” he asks.
Viggo tosses his cigarette out the widow. “Then you move on.”
Elijah nods as they come up to the turnoff for LAX. He knows all about moving on. For the first time in twenty-two years he’ll truly be on his own. He thinks it’s well past time.
He ashes out the window and shakes his head as the ash blows back, all over his shirt. “It’s not easy -- this life thing, is it?” he asks, already knowing the answer.
Viggo shrugs as they drive past the huge letters welcoming them to Los Angeles International. “No one ever said it was.”
-end-
Happy (Early) Birthday,
ethrosdemon. + *Quote from ‘All My Friends’ by Counting Crows.
+ Betas, improvements and all around support from
lalejandra and lux__aeterna. Remaining snafus are mine.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-02-03 05:16 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-03 05:22 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-03 10:43 pm (UTC)What a lovely thing to say about this story, I'm so pleased that you enjoyed it so much, thank you!
no subject
Date: 2004-02-03 05:21 pm (UTC)"It's harder to be friends than lovers/and you shouldn't try to mix the two/'cause if you do it and you're still unhappy/then you know that the problem is you"
So yeah. This is one of those stories that I recognize, if you know what I mean. And I really do like the way you write the wombat. You may not like him, but you make him very human, and very real.
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Date: 2004-02-03 10:44 pm (UTC)Way to stick the complement on a double edged sword. *snorts* I'm pleased you liked it though, babe, thanks!
no subject
Date: 2004-02-03 05:58 pm (UTC)I'm not fixated. No.
Love this, by the way. Am thoroughly enjoying your LOTRPS.
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Date: 2004-02-03 10:45 pm (UTC)Love this, by the way. Am thoroughly enjoying your LOTRPS.
*laughs* Somebody's got some Dom issues. *re-reads sentence and laughs*
no subject
Date: 2004-02-03 07:25 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-03 10:46 pm (UTC)*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2004-02-03 08:06 pm (UTC)I'm also impressed with how real Elijah seems. He swears too much and he smokes too much and he's confused as hell. All of those imperfections add up just right to be perfect.
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Date: 2004-02-03 10:47 pm (UTC)I'm also impressed with how real Elijah seems. He swears too much and he smokes too much and he's confused as hell. All of those imperfections add up just right to be perfect.
I'm so pleased that you enjoyed my depictions, it means a lot to me to hear you enjoyed this. Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2004-02-03 08:39 pm (UTC)That last scene is just. So. Exactly what the story needed. Perfect.
Also, I don't think I mentioned this when I beta'd, but, for the love, your pacing is stellar. I realize that seems like kind of a stupid thing to say, but I'm so conscious of it, and you're extremely good at it, and I wish this story hadn't ended, ever.
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Date: 2004-02-03 10:48 pm (UTC)The entire time I was writing this scene I was biting my nails like 'What if this isn't what she meant? What if i get it wrong and it ruins the whole story? AHHHHHHHHHH!'
It was very nerve wracking.
Also, I don't think I mentioned this when I beta'd, but, for the love, your pacing is stellar. I realize that seems like kind of a stupid thing to say, but I'm so conscious of it, and you're extremely good at it, and I wish this story hadn't ended, ever.
{{{{{{hugs}}}}}
It means sooooo much to hear you say that, thank you!
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Date: 2004-02-04 05:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-03 09:54 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-03 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-04 12:39 am (UTC)I've been reading too many elijah's stories this days and I feel an elijah obsession coming, and you can say you helped. Thank you.
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Date: 2004-02-04 08:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-04 02:59 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-04 08:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-04 04:08 pm (UTC)“Or what indeed.” Viggo brushes a stray piece of hair behind his ear and considers Elijah for several seconds.
Someone who would really say this and mean it is so out of everyone's league. They are only meant for another uberhuman.
It’s not jealousy. That would be too complicated. It’s just curiosity, like wondering why Dom never notices the looks that Billy gives him.
Ha! You are so insightful and subtle, my dear. That's one of those strange emotions that can't ever be explained to anyone because anyone who hears it automatically thinks "oh, he's jealous, but he won't admit it." Why are people so stupid?? WHY? Poor Billy, btw. I know lots of people who would be v happy to date Billy. I should fix him up.
On the nights that Elijah finds his way to Viggo’s place, he tells Dom he unplugged the phone because he desperately needed to sleep or be alone. Dom nods his head as though he understands, but sometimes Elijah can see the hurt,
This is all so v real, human, off-kilter in that "I know that guy" way. In this case, I think I know that *chick*, but moving on. *cough*
“As long as you‘re enjoying yourself,” Viggo says.
Omg, Viggo, shut up! I think he would make me insane with all those amorphous comments.
Sometimes though, when it’s really late at night or far too early in the morning, Elijah wonders how many hobbits and elves can say they’ve slept with the king.
See, yeah. If you were to just be honest, Elijiah, you wouldn't feel so shitty and have to wonder. Then you could all make Viggo human by talking smack about him. Oh, but then you would be a girl. Sorry.
Love that line.
The way you describe Dom and Lij through Lij's eyes is so beautifully done. He's too young to really understand that those sorts of relationships are the ones that last. Wow, I feel sorry for him! haha!
Viggo is uncomplicated.
Keep thinkin' that, kiddo. Oh, to be 19 again! What I think I truly love with this V-E dynamic is that he really is experiencing hero worship with a side dish of sex, and he can't really see everything that he's projecting. This is so well done. Whee!
It’s only later, when he’s packing up his house and can’t figure how the hell he acquired so many clothes that the reality begins to sink in, and he finds himself mired in mismatched sneakers muttering ‘fuck’ over and over again.
Oh god! Trapped, like a rat, in happiness! You are so amazing at these complex, fucked up emotions that people don't like to talk about because they make them look shallow or just plain Evil. Your grey world is the real world, and you do it justice. (where's your novel, so that I can come be in your posse and get kicked out of literary events?)
They can go here, they can’t go there; people talk, there’s pointing and whispering and all kinds of insanity with the fans.
Z shouts out to tinhats!
“I’m not abandoning you,”
Ooops, when you have to say that out loud, you've already lost the fight! (personal experience talking)
“Right. You decide to shove off to New York after I come here to be with you.”
Uh oh, Dom has a point there, no?
Being a part of a whole like this is just too hard.
This is beautiful, and also I know why this fic is so dead on. lol
The break up scene is so depressingly accurate. Oh, Dom, just call Billy.
The radio is tuned to NPR
Of course it is. But also, this entire pp is so fucking GREAT! I want to lick it.
Of course, the end of this is best part, so v v well done. Brilliant and understated.
Viggo always has the answers. Elijah depends on this.
This sort of gave me a weird creepy vibe where I started to think about how much Elijiah thought of Viggo in a parental role, and how Viggo must have missed that (I hope) when they first had sex, and how Elijiah wanted the sex AND the parenting, and ICKY. But I suppose that's how a lot of people really are.
I love you. Thank you.
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Date: 2004-02-04 08:34 pm (UTC)Someone who would really say this and mean it is so out of everyone's league. They are only meant for another uberhuman.
To me Viggo seems so, like, centered. Okay, no more yoga for me.
Ha! You are so insightful and subtle, my dear. That's one of those strange emotions that can't ever be explained to anyone because anyone who hears it automatically thinks "oh, he's jealous, but he won't admit it." Why are people so stupid?? WHY? Poor Billy, btw. I know lots of people who would be v happy to date Billy. I should fix him up.
I would date Billy! Me! Me! Me! Mine! Mine! Mine!
The way you describe Dom and Lij through Lij's eyes is so beautifully done. He's too young to really understand that those sorts of relationships are the ones that last. Wow, I feel sorry for him! haha!
Dude, it's the eternal curse of getting what you really need. It's not what you want, and only later, after you've gone and fucked the whole bit up do you say 'oh, WTF!'
Oh god! Trapped, like a rat, in happiness! You are so amazing at these complex, fucked up emotions that people don't like to talk about because they make them look shallow or just plain Evil. Your grey world is the real world, and you do it justice. (where's your novel, so that I can come be in your posse and get kicked out of literary events?)
All I know is the gray bits, you know this. Evol? What's this evol of which you speak? Also, novel who? [insert mad laughing here]
Being a part of a whole like this is just too hard.
This is beautiful, and also I know why this fic is so dead on. lol
The break up scene is so depressingly accurate. Oh, Dom, just call Billy.
There we are not even going there with the accuracy of this fic in terms of breaking up or, um, other stuff. Instead, we will think on pretty Dom & Billy because, we just will. I'm so glad you liked this sweetie.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-04 08:04 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-04 08:09 pm (UTC)no really, i want to know where that au version jude/draco pic is from. TELL ME NOW. i need to know. *blinks*
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Date: 2004-02-04 08:26 pm (UTC)Dude, this is like having sex with your ex when you know you're not supposed to. Bad Zahra. Also, the jude photo I picked up from one of the jude communities. He has like three. Check them. Or, I can send it to you as an attachment, I'm keeping it for some AU I'm probably not going to write.
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Date: 2004-02-04 08:56 pm (UTC)and what au? jude-as-draco au? dude don't tease like that! is it for my birthday? (b/c of course evrything is about me)
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Date: 2004-02-05 12:50 am (UTC)Dude, I realized this isn't break-up depression, it's the dawning of a new era. I had to cut away from Smallville to focus on what's really important: Lex. All the SV stuff you see today and will probably see from now on is all Lex, all the time. Future. Past. Present. Just Lex. Kinda like Just Jack, only not.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-05 07:03 pm (UTC)I like that it's sort of calm; there's drama, but it's just normal life-drama. It's very - I don't know. Like waves, or something. I just enjoyed it.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-06 11:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-21 06:15 am (UTC)