Possibly a mistake Part II
Aug. 6th, 2004 10:13 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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rugbytacklePossibly a Mistake (Part II)
Author: Babe Piglet
Length: Fic
Pairing: VM/SB
Rating: PG (for language and remembered sex) (F world)
Feedback: Sure. Never done this before. Don’t have a reader.
Summary: Viggo struggles (jealously) with his son’s obsessions and makes a new friend in New Zealand.
Disclaimer: Angst. Jealousy. No plot, no gratuitous sex (no sex YET), author doesn’t know these people, etc.
Nothing wrong with location sex. Viggo looked around, startled. Had he said that out loud?
No one was staring at him, so apparently not. But where the fuck did that thought come from. He shook his head and watched the line at Passport Control. That’s where it came from. The babe standing to his right, maybe two people ahead of him. What nice … Fashion accessories …she had. Very nice. He needed to get laid. He needed to get laid, and badly. Very Badly. His mind reviewed the cast. Didn’t remember the name of the actress playing Gabrielle. No that wasn’t right. Galadriel. Gorgeous, Jackson had said. Luminous. Okay. That’s a good start. Probably married. Arwen. Yeah, yeah, Steve Tyler’s daughter. He’d met the girl. A bit young. In fact, a way bit young. Tyler would have his guts for guitar strings. He thought it was the one, kinda pretty, but was she an actress? Oh yeah, Bebe had had a kid. So this one, this Arwen, might be the other one. Life at the edge of the rock world was a confusion of families, kids being raised in other families. Who is on first? What’s on second? It was a totally fucked up world. Trying to keep Henry out of it, well, in it but clear about things, about priorities, was practically a full time job in itself. At least he and Henry’s mom agreed on that, if not about…No. Not going to think about that now.
Think about Aragorn. What the hell was he going to do about Aragorn. Viggo’s gut started to tense up and ripple. Christ, he had better pull this out, this Aragorn fellow. What made him tick? Ring bad. Aragorn good. That’s as far as he had gotten. He had barely sorted out the story. He was taking a lot on trust and this was *not* how he liked to work. Method actors studied their parts, worked their way into the role. They didn’t take accept a role, and show up fully cocked and loaded for bear the next day. It took time – days, weeks, months -- to absorb the nuances, to know the character. They became one with the role. No separation. He lived his roles and they became part of him. Christ, when his character was a mute he hadn’t said a word for six weeks. He didn’t know this Aragorn. He didn’t want people saying, yeah, the movie was okay, but *that* guy, that *Aragorn guy* he was all wrong.
“Reason for visit to New Zealand?”
“Huh?” He stared at the man blankly.
“Reason for your visit?” The passport control officer looked at him and held out his hand.
Shit. Did he have the right visa? Did he even need a visa? He hadn’t thought of that. He was traveling under a photo copy of his fucking passport. He handed the man a Xeroxed copy of his passport.
“Where is your passport, Mr. ummm….” The man looked at the sheet of paper in his hand. “Mortensen?”
Lost it. Lost the fucking wallet too. It’s been one fucking disaster after another. My life could make a disaster movie. Did I tell you that my wife left me because of Oliver fucking Mellors? That my son’s hero is a British movie star, instead of his father, a real life American actor? That I’m a fucking loser? Tell me I can’t come in. No room in New Zealand for fucking losers. Tell me I have to go home. But let me smell some fresh air first, and take a crap, and then put me on the first plane back to the States. I want to go home.
“Movie. Movie in Wellington.”
“Hmmmm.”
Viggo looked around blankly. Jackson was supposed to have taken care of this.
The passport control guy picked up his phone. Oh yeah, that’s the supervisor.
Whatever the guy on the phone told him, it must have satisfied him. “You’ll get your passport replaced, right?”
“Uh-huh.” Viggo nodded. It was in process. How the fuck had he lost everything. Fly to New York, back to Idaho, and then the fucking drive from Idaho to LA. Lose his head it if wasn’t attached to his shoulders. What the fuck.
He took the paper and got into another line, waiting for another plane. His luggage checked through, his boarding pass confirmed.
He wondered if the stewardess was with someone. Pay attention, asshole. Well, parts of him were paying attention, at least. Quite close attention. He shut his eyes and took a deep breath, pulled his knapsack over his lap. Women could be given away by their nipples, and the size of their pupils. So could men, actually. But men had the added problem of a tent in their lap. He tried not to feel embarrassed, when what he really needed was to get laid. He thought about something else. Swimming in cold water, getting kicked in the balls by a mule. Anything.
He pulled out the fax from Jackson. Some security guy would meet him, or possibly Fran. Was that Francis or Frances, he wondered. He sighed. Christ, he needed to get laid.
This was a short trip, but time was relative. The plane landed and he discovered it was Frances with an “es” and she was with someone, but he couldn’t sort out the relationships. She tried to fill him in on the way to the set, but he was too unstrung. She stopped at a restaurant and fed him breakfast, coffee, eggs, and a few things he couldn’t identify. He answered her questions randomly, asked a few of his own, tried to sound intelligent and miserably. She smiled at him benignly and told him it would be all right.
“You sound like my mother,” he said. Christ, did he really say that? She laughed and took him to his hotel. “Sleep,” she said. “I’ll come get you at tea time.”
Tea time? When the hell was that? But she left a wake up call for him, and he was up, showered and dressed, feeling slightly human, when she arrived, with a car, and took him to the set.
The set was the usual confusion of cables snaking across the parking lot and cameras, signs, trailers, and Quonset huts everywhere. One hut had a sign that says “Feet.” Feet? He wandered into catering, led by Fran, who introduced him to a swarm of people, and then she kissed the hairy guy that Viggo learned was Jackson. He decided he was glad he hadn’t made a pass at her. Definitely would have been tacky. Although it could well have earned him a quick trip home.
He quit worrying at the knot in his gut, and finished his tea. He shook hands cheerfully with everyone who came up to him, and went with the tide of production assistants and costumers. Christ, too many names, more than 80 speaking parts. All those characters, how to keep them straight. Three movies at once, the man was insane. Wigs, beard, boots, costume. He thought about his razor, at the hotel. Still had to find a train track. He pondered his amazing hatred for his razor, and remembered. Christmas. Same Christmas as they had given Henry his Sharpe videos. Richard fucking… he blotted out the name. Don’t think about him now.
What were those creatures? He stared at a line of about a dozen hairy, noisy stunties. Was that one a woman? Maybe. Why not? She probably could kick his butt from here to Fiji. How far was Fiji? Someone shoved a sword into his hand. Hold it like how? He looked at it in amazement. This is a sword? What’s my name? What time is it? All the baddies he had played, but he never had had to hold a sword. His wrist twitched, trying to heft it. Heavy. “Aragorn has a sword?” He said it like he hadn’t realized Aragorn would have a sword, like some medieval warrior would be roaming around with only his dick for company. Viggo reached a tentative finger toward the blade.
“Careful,” a voice warned. “It’s sharp.”
Sharp. Sharpe? Richard fucking….
Viggo shoved the name from his mind. Call Henry later. Now, think about what you’re doing. Before you cut yourself. Before you cut your fucking head off. Aragorn. Learn Aragorn. He twitched sword in his hand.
The dozen ghastly-looking creatures at the other end of the room were rumbling. Stomping their feet, muttering some strange chant. Vibrating. Viggo looked at them with apprehension. What the fuck? With loud yells and waving swords, shields, stomping, they charged him.
FUCK! His gut churned. He swallowed hard, and blinked. But he didn’t run. He wanted to, but his feet had suddenly put down roots, long firm tentacles, through the ground. The crowd of monsters stopped about three feet away, and grinned at him. Monsters grinning. He grinned back. He could not distinguish yet among Orcs, Uruks, and whatever ever else Tolkien’s fevered imagination had cooked up. Eventually he would know. How to use the sword. Aragorn’s sword. How to tell and Ork from and Uruk hai. Because Aragorn would know.
“Of course Aragorn has a sword. Aragorn is a soldier, a ranger from the North. A Numenorian. The last of an ancient house of kings. I’ll teach you how to use this sword, but later.”
Viggo looked at the man, old, gray haired, lined face, eyes lit with amusement. Okay. He twitched the sword again in his hand. It felt heavy and real.
He looked at the sword. Aragorn’s sword. Okay. A piece of Aragorn slipped into place.
He’d met them all, or all of those cast members who were here at least. The cast and stunties were a blur of Ians, Seans, Sams, Hemi and Anaru, English names, Scots names, Welsh names and Maori names. We need name tags. He tried to sort out some of the Fellowship cast. The Ians were older, the Hobbits were younger, so the only one his age was Boromir. He still wasn’t sure of the guy’s name. John something, or was it Sam something, or was it… Ben? He couldn’t remember. Another Brit. Or maybe a Welshman. The dozen words he had spoken to Viggo …hi, glad you’re here, we’ll have a beer sometime, need anything, yell… literally 12 words…had been soft and in some variant of English that he had to strain to understand. Football crazy, Peter had said, and the guy had indeed vanished, to watch a match. Viggo understood football to mean soccer. He liked it himself.
I am so fucked. And between the real names and the character names? Totally screwed. Charm counted for something, and when he was desperate, he smiled charmingly, and people were nice to the new boy. He just put himself into the hands of the production assistants, and tried to keep up. They couldn’t say his name, though. Viggo. It came out Wigo (as in Why go?) and Wiggo, and Whiggie, and Figgie, until he finally said, it rhymes with ego. Then it happened. No ego-Viggo. He would have laughed if it had been funny. How they did *not* know him. Not that he didn’t have one, it’s just that he was so pliable, he had to be right now. He didn’t know Aragorn, not yet. He wondered for the millionth time what had really happened to the previous Aragorn.
The hobbits were prancing around telling jokes, and he wasn’t paying attention. The Hobbits and the Elf. Elfboy, Legolas. Orlando. Viggo had no idea where he came from, other than that he had one of those poncy British accents. When had he become an Anglophobe? Richard f…. The Hobbits ran as a pack, and Orlando was either in the lead or right behind. Elijah was incredibly young. A woman periodically wandered by and removed a cigarette from his hand. The Hobbits and the Elf reminded him of Henry and his friends. Games, fantasies. What was that? “Orli?” What a name, Orlando. Old fashioned. Like his own.
The elf turned and smiled. Had he said that out loud? Apparently so.
“You guys think I can get an autograph of Sharpe for my kid?”
Orli nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, ask Sean.”
Sean, yeah, okay, ANOTHER Sean…there were only about 200 on the production in total. He was going to put his foot in it before he was done. Of course, he could always just say, Sean, and probably the right person would look up and ask him what he wanted. He needed sleep. 24 hours in New Zealand, and he was half into his Aragorn costume, half in his street clothes, and his head was still in California. Or maybe it had reached Hawaii by now.
“Sean?”
“Yes, Beanie.” The Hobbits nodded agreement, their absurd curls bobbing.
“Beanie?”
Orli nodded enthusiastically. “Sean.” He supplied helpfully.
“Yes?” And there he was, at the door. Viggo realized he had not seen his co-star out of his Boromir clothes and makeup. Well, when would he have seen him? Here Sean was, bearded, but wigless, looking vaguely familiar, smiling at him, a warm smile that crinkled his face. Boromir but not Boromir, Viggo’s foggy, jet-lagged brain told him.
“Ready?” Viggo took the outstretched hand, and Sean hauled him to his feet.
“Where are you guys going?” Orli queried.
“You aren’t coming,” Sean said firmly.
Five sniffs echoed in the room. Five faces looked forlornly at Sean and then at Viggo, hopefully.
“Say no, Viggo.” When Sean rolled Viggo's name off his tongue, the “e” sound lasted a minute and a half. Veeeeego. Viggo liked the sound of it.
“No, Veeeeego,” Viggo repeated. Sean rolled his eyes. The Hobbits and the Elf giggled.
“Come on, then.” He looked that the Hobbits and the Elf. “Not you.” He shook his head. “Go surfing or bungee jumping or parachute out of something, or set something on fire, or something.”
Viggo followed Sean out the door. “Set something on fire?”
“Don’t ask. My car is here. I want to show you something. We’ll go to Daffy’s later, maybe.”
“Daffy’s?”
“Yeah, we have a favorite place, but I call it Daffy’s, because it gets Daffy, once the Hobbits show up.”
He climbed into Sean’s car, a Suburban. His companion drove outside of the city, up a mountainside and parked the car. He didn’t waste words, but on Viggo, tonight, any conversation would have been a waste of words. Sean picked something out of the back. A small cooler, and Viggo heard the chink of bottles and raised his eyebrows. Sean grinned at him. “What, you’re a picky eater? That’s my role.”
They walked to the overlook, a mountainside outside of Wellington, and looked down, at the crescent of white water lapping the shoreline, mountains blue in the distance, sparkling blue water beneath. “Smell that?”
Viggo breathed in the air. “I can’t smell anything.” He said after a while.
“That’s right. Clean air.” Sean closed his eyes and leaned back. “Clean air.” Sean reached into his sack and pulled out a small cloth, spread it on the rock between them, pulled some cheese, some pears, and two bottles of beer. Viggo caught his breath. “Is that Havarti?” Sean nodded. Viggo picked up the second wrapped package. “Saga blue?” From the bottom of the bag, Sean removed a loaf of bread. Viggo picked it up and inhaled deeply. “Oooohhh.” A pop and a fizz, and Sean held out a bottle of beer. “Not Danish beer. Or Danish bread.” He smiled. “PJ said that you spent some time in Denmark. Hope you liked the cheese.”
Viggo nodded. “Dreamed about it on the plane.”
Sean’s eyes widened. Viggo looked at the beer. Unpasturized. And wheat beer. God bless the man.
Sean lifted the beer bottle. “Have 8 more of these, too.” He popped the cap off his own bottle and lifted it. “Welcome to New Zealand, Viggo Mortensen,” Sean clinked his bottle against Viggo’s. Viggo took a sip and then tilted his head back, and took a long gulp.
They stared at the water and the white waves on the shoreline, and munched, chewed, and gulped contentedly.
“I don’t have the dots all connected,” Viggo murmured.
“It will come,” Sean said. “Peter is a wise fellow.”
“He screwed up once.”
Sean looked sharply at Viggo, and sighed, gazed off into the distance. “That was a studio choice, and PJ and Fran let the studio run them over.” He shook his head. “It’s a risk. No giant name to hinge this on. They wanted Sean Connery for Gandalf, but couldn’t afford him. They wanted God knows who for Boromir, and they got me.” He grinned. “I nearly wrecked my car when my agent called. I was that excited.” Sean looked at Viggo shrewdly. “And I wouldn’t switch the part for anything, either.”
Viggo raised an eyebrow.
“Rumors, you know.” Sean swigged his beer. “I like the parts that are catalysts. The ones where my character forces an issue, or makes it all come together.”
Viggo nodded. “Yeah. So tell me about … Boromir as a catalyst.”
Sean took a swig of his beer and bit into a hunk of bread. “He’s a man. Men are weak. . “Boromir is a soldier. Strong, good fighter. His father’s pride and joy. There’s another brother, whom Boromir loves.”
“Faramir.”
“Yeah, Faramir. The father despises Faramir because he thinks Faramir is a weakling. Boromir is a soldier, a hero of Gondor. The first born of the Steward. weak. After a battle in which the Gondorians reclaim Osgiliath, and after which Boromir gets a big cheer from the thronging multitudes,” Sean snickered, “Denethor – that’s the father – sends Boromir on a quest to obtain the ring for him. So Boromir has two strikes against him. He wants to please his father … obtain the ring, and he is a man…weak like men…and he feels the power of the ring pulling him in. It’s a double whammy.”
“And Boromir tries to take the ring from Frodo.”
Sean nodded. “And Frodo escapes from Boromir, runs into Aragorn, offers the ring to Aragorn. Aragorn doesn’t take it. ‘I would have followed you to the gates of Mount Doom,’ he tells Frodo. At least that is what the script says now, who knows what it will say tomorrow. And then the fight breaks out. Aragorn lets Frodo go.”
“So how is Boromir a catalyst?”
“Isildur was weak. And his blood flows in Aragorn’s veins. In Boromir’s too, I think, if I understand the genealogies right. But anyway, men are weak. The elves are always pissing on about that, about the weakness of men. The pride of men. How greedy, how power hungry they are. Poncy elves.”
Viggo snickered. “I imagined they were always clean, always well groomed.”
“Yeah. And that men were scruffy. That was part of the problem with Stewart, by the way. He didn’t scruff up well. And he didn’t look much older than Orli, whatever they tried to do to him.” Sean looked Viggo over appraisingly. “Don’t think you’ll have a problem with that. I ‘xpect you scruff up quite nicely.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, mate.”
Viggo watched strong jaw muscles chew another hunk of bread.
“Men are weak. Aragorn knows this. It has scared the piss out of him all his life, how weak men are. How weak his own ancestor was. Isildur. Couldn’t throw the damn ring back into the fire of Mount Doom. So Evil survived.” Sean took a swig from his beer and then bit off a hunk of his bread. “Good stuff, this,” he mumbled through the mouthful.
Sean squinted. “When Aragorn finds Boromir, dying, he tells him that he let Frodo go on alone. ‘Then you did what I could not,’ Boromir says to Aragorn. He sees this as his failure. In the end, Aragorn convinces him, or tries to, that he has died an honorable death in protecting the Hobbits. ‘You kept your honor.’ He reinterprets for Boromir. And Boromir extracts from him a promise, and,” Sean punctuated his sentence with his finger, “This is Aragorn’s turning point.” Sean stabbed at the cheese with the knife. “Want more of this?” Viggo nodded and Sean hacked him off a slice of cheese.
“This is the point at which Aragorn takes on the responsibility for the world of men, and he and Boromir switch places, basically. Until now, Boromir has protected Middle Earth from Mordor. At this point, Aragorn gradually assumes that role. He’s been hiding in shadows, afraid of what he is, a man, and weak like men, weak like Isildur. Boromir has tried to convince him that there is courage in men, and honor also. And in dying, he does so. And Aragorn has more strength, more integrity than Isildur. And he also has learned what Isildur never did, that the arrogance of man is his undoing. It was certainly Boromir’s.” Sean shook his head. “It is ever so, mate. Ever so.”
He lapsed into silence, broken by his jaws grinding bread and cheese.
“Aragorn says, to Boromir, ‘I do not know what strength is in my blood, but I swear to you, I will not let the White City fall.’ That is his promise to dying Boromir. And in making that promise, he is committed to fight Sauron to the end. His end or Sauron’s.” Sean shook his head. “I’m still fighting this out with Fran and Pippa. If this scene isn’t right, Aragorn’s motivation is shit.”
“But Boromir broke the Fellowship by trying to take the ring from Frodo.”
“Yes, that’s true. But without the breaking of the Fellowship, Aragorn remains outside the world of men. He’s not looking to be king. He tells Elrond, ‘I don’t want it, I never wanted it.’ He refuses take up the sword of man.” Sean bit into a hunk of cheese. “But once he makes a promise to a dying man, ‘I will not let the White City fall,’ he’s committed. To save the White City, the King must return. Aragorn must set aside the ranger and become what he was meant to be.” He looked at Viggo carefully. “This scene has got to be as perfect as we can make it. The whole movie, all three of them actually, hinge on this scene. ”
“I need to read more. When do we shoot it?”
“Next week, maybe early the week after. Depends on the weather.”
“Fuck.” So soon?
Sean nodded. Looked at Viggo and grinned. His smile, his good humored intensity, was infectious. But so was the measles. However, Viggo grinned back. Maybe everything would be okay. Maybe. This guy could be an anchor. Viggo liked anchors. He was a flake, he knew it. More weird than Fruitloops. Henry’s phrase. He drained his beer and accepted another one.
“So your character dies in the beginning of Two Towers?”
“Or at the end of Fellowship. Fran and PJ aren’t sure. Probably at the end of Fellowship.” Sean looked at Viggo and smiled grimly. “The script changes daily. Get used to it, mate.”
Viggo flexed his shoulders and winced.
“Long flight, it is.” Sean said sympathetically, handing Viggo another beer.
“Long flight, pinned in by a bald guy with his seat back, two meat packers on either side, and a kid in the seat behind me.” Viggo shook his head. “The most unappetizing view of a guy’s bald head. And I’m stiff and sore and I don’t know where the hell my brain is.” He grinned at Sean. “But this…” he held up the bread with a piece of cheese on it… “…this helps.” He paused and considered the beer and the scenery. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, mate.”
They watched the clouds scutter across the sky. How long? Viggo didn’t know. He sighed. I really need to get laid. His eyes widened. Shit, had he said that aloud? He looked at his hands, and then shot a sidelong look at Sean, who was watching him, eyes widened.
Viggo blushed and shivered. “I don’t know why I said that.” He exhaled. “I…ummm…well, I’m not filtering what I’m thinking very well right now, I guess.”
“Jet lag.” Sean nodded. “Well, I don’t put out on the first date, but I do a pretty good back rub. Liv says I have magic fingers.” Sean flexed his long fingers and patted the log between his knees. “Sit here.”
“Yeah?” Viggo looked hopeful. He needed to get laid, but a good back rub wasn’t to be sneezed at. He edged over and settled between Sean’s knees.
“Yeah.” Long fingers pressed his temples, moving in a slow, small circle. Thumbs behind his skull, held him immobile, warm fingers pushed away the tension knotting his brain.
“Mmmmmm.” Through eyes partially opened, he watched the light dim over Wellington, shimmering golden on the bay, and then the water turned dark, gleaming with sparkles of lights reflected off the shore. The long, warm fingers stroked his temples, his forehead, his sinuses, hitting pressure points, first lightly, then more intensely. The fingers worked their way to his scalp, massaging gently, then harder. A gentle hand tilted his head forward, strong fingers massaging gently at the base of his skull, working their way down his neck, slowly stretching each muscle, working the knots, one by one. Damn, this guy was good.
"Mmmmmm," he repeated. "Will you marry me?"
Author: Babe Piglet
Length: Fic
Pairing: VM/SB
Rating: PG (for language and remembered sex) (F world)
Feedback: Sure. Never done this before. Don’t have a reader.
Summary: Viggo struggles (jealously) with his son’s obsessions and makes a new friend in New Zealand.
Disclaimer: Angst. Jealousy. No plot, no gratuitous sex (no sex YET), author doesn’t know these people, etc.
Nothing wrong with location sex. Viggo looked around, startled. Had he said that out loud?
No one was staring at him, so apparently not. But where the fuck did that thought come from. He shook his head and watched the line at Passport Control. That’s where it came from. The babe standing to his right, maybe two people ahead of him. What nice … Fashion accessories …she had. Very nice. He needed to get laid. He needed to get laid, and badly. Very Badly. His mind reviewed the cast. Didn’t remember the name of the actress playing Gabrielle. No that wasn’t right. Galadriel. Gorgeous, Jackson had said. Luminous. Okay. That’s a good start. Probably married. Arwen. Yeah, yeah, Steve Tyler’s daughter. He’d met the girl. A bit young. In fact, a way bit young. Tyler would have his guts for guitar strings. He thought it was the one, kinda pretty, but was she an actress? Oh yeah, Bebe had had a kid. So this one, this Arwen, might be the other one. Life at the edge of the rock world was a confusion of families, kids being raised in other families. Who is on first? What’s on second? It was a totally fucked up world. Trying to keep Henry out of it, well, in it but clear about things, about priorities, was practically a full time job in itself. At least he and Henry’s mom agreed on that, if not about…No. Not going to think about that now.
Think about Aragorn. What the hell was he going to do about Aragorn. Viggo’s gut started to tense up and ripple. Christ, he had better pull this out, this Aragorn fellow. What made him tick? Ring bad. Aragorn good. That’s as far as he had gotten. He had barely sorted out the story. He was taking a lot on trust and this was *not* how he liked to work. Method actors studied their parts, worked their way into the role. They didn’t take accept a role, and show up fully cocked and loaded for bear the next day. It took time – days, weeks, months -- to absorb the nuances, to know the character. They became one with the role. No separation. He lived his roles and they became part of him. Christ, when his character was a mute he hadn’t said a word for six weeks. He didn’t know this Aragorn. He didn’t want people saying, yeah, the movie was okay, but *that* guy, that *Aragorn guy* he was all wrong.
“Reason for visit to New Zealand?”
“Huh?” He stared at the man blankly.
“Reason for your visit?” The passport control officer looked at him and held out his hand.
Shit. Did he have the right visa? Did he even need a visa? He hadn’t thought of that. He was traveling under a photo copy of his fucking passport. He handed the man a Xeroxed copy of his passport.
“Where is your passport, Mr. ummm….” The man looked at the sheet of paper in his hand. “Mortensen?”
Lost it. Lost the fucking wallet too. It’s been one fucking disaster after another. My life could make a disaster movie. Did I tell you that my wife left me because of Oliver fucking Mellors? That my son’s hero is a British movie star, instead of his father, a real life American actor? That I’m a fucking loser? Tell me I can’t come in. No room in New Zealand for fucking losers. Tell me I have to go home. But let me smell some fresh air first, and take a crap, and then put me on the first plane back to the States. I want to go home.
“Movie. Movie in Wellington.”
“Hmmmm.”
Viggo looked around blankly. Jackson was supposed to have taken care of this.
The passport control guy picked up his phone. Oh yeah, that’s the supervisor.
Whatever the guy on the phone told him, it must have satisfied him. “You’ll get your passport replaced, right?”
“Uh-huh.” Viggo nodded. It was in process. How the fuck had he lost everything. Fly to New York, back to Idaho, and then the fucking drive from Idaho to LA. Lose his head it if wasn’t attached to his shoulders. What the fuck.
He took the paper and got into another line, waiting for another plane. His luggage checked through, his boarding pass confirmed.
He wondered if the stewardess was with someone. Pay attention, asshole. Well, parts of him were paying attention, at least. Quite close attention. He shut his eyes and took a deep breath, pulled his knapsack over his lap. Women could be given away by their nipples, and the size of their pupils. So could men, actually. But men had the added problem of a tent in their lap. He tried not to feel embarrassed, when what he really needed was to get laid. He thought about something else. Swimming in cold water, getting kicked in the balls by a mule. Anything.
He pulled out the fax from Jackson. Some security guy would meet him, or possibly Fran. Was that Francis or Frances, he wondered. He sighed. Christ, he needed to get laid.
This was a short trip, but time was relative. The plane landed and he discovered it was Frances with an “es” and she was with someone, but he couldn’t sort out the relationships. She tried to fill him in on the way to the set, but he was too unstrung. She stopped at a restaurant and fed him breakfast, coffee, eggs, and a few things he couldn’t identify. He answered her questions randomly, asked a few of his own, tried to sound intelligent and miserably. She smiled at him benignly and told him it would be all right.
“You sound like my mother,” he said. Christ, did he really say that? She laughed and took him to his hotel. “Sleep,” she said. “I’ll come get you at tea time.”
Tea time? When the hell was that? But she left a wake up call for him, and he was up, showered and dressed, feeling slightly human, when she arrived, with a car, and took him to the set.
The set was the usual confusion of cables snaking across the parking lot and cameras, signs, trailers, and Quonset huts everywhere. One hut had a sign that says “Feet.” Feet? He wandered into catering, led by Fran, who introduced him to a swarm of people, and then she kissed the hairy guy that Viggo learned was Jackson. He decided he was glad he hadn’t made a pass at her. Definitely would have been tacky. Although it could well have earned him a quick trip home.
He quit worrying at the knot in his gut, and finished his tea. He shook hands cheerfully with everyone who came up to him, and went with the tide of production assistants and costumers. Christ, too many names, more than 80 speaking parts. All those characters, how to keep them straight. Three movies at once, the man was insane. Wigs, beard, boots, costume. He thought about his razor, at the hotel. Still had to find a train track. He pondered his amazing hatred for his razor, and remembered. Christmas. Same Christmas as they had given Henry his Sharpe videos. Richard fucking… he blotted out the name. Don’t think about him now.
What were those creatures? He stared at a line of about a dozen hairy, noisy stunties. Was that one a woman? Maybe. Why not? She probably could kick his butt from here to Fiji. How far was Fiji? Someone shoved a sword into his hand. Hold it like how? He looked at it in amazement. This is a sword? What’s my name? What time is it? All the baddies he had played, but he never had had to hold a sword. His wrist twitched, trying to heft it. Heavy. “Aragorn has a sword?” He said it like he hadn’t realized Aragorn would have a sword, like some medieval warrior would be roaming around with only his dick for company. Viggo reached a tentative finger toward the blade.
“Careful,” a voice warned. “It’s sharp.”
Sharp. Sharpe? Richard fucking….
Viggo shoved the name from his mind. Call Henry later. Now, think about what you’re doing. Before you cut yourself. Before you cut your fucking head off. Aragorn. Learn Aragorn. He twitched sword in his hand.
The dozen ghastly-looking creatures at the other end of the room were rumbling. Stomping their feet, muttering some strange chant. Vibrating. Viggo looked at them with apprehension. What the fuck? With loud yells and waving swords, shields, stomping, they charged him.
FUCK! His gut churned. He swallowed hard, and blinked. But he didn’t run. He wanted to, but his feet had suddenly put down roots, long firm tentacles, through the ground. The crowd of monsters stopped about three feet away, and grinned at him. Monsters grinning. He grinned back. He could not distinguish yet among Orcs, Uruks, and whatever ever else Tolkien’s fevered imagination had cooked up. Eventually he would know. How to use the sword. Aragorn’s sword. How to tell and Ork from and Uruk hai. Because Aragorn would know.
“Of course Aragorn has a sword. Aragorn is a soldier, a ranger from the North. A Numenorian. The last of an ancient house of kings. I’ll teach you how to use this sword, but later.”
Viggo looked at the man, old, gray haired, lined face, eyes lit with amusement. Okay. He twitched the sword again in his hand. It felt heavy and real.
He looked at the sword. Aragorn’s sword. Okay. A piece of Aragorn slipped into place.
He’d met them all, or all of those cast members who were here at least. The cast and stunties were a blur of Ians, Seans, Sams, Hemi and Anaru, English names, Scots names, Welsh names and Maori names. We need name tags. He tried to sort out some of the Fellowship cast. The Ians were older, the Hobbits were younger, so the only one his age was Boromir. He still wasn’t sure of the guy’s name. John something, or was it Sam something, or was it… Ben? He couldn’t remember. Another Brit. Or maybe a Welshman. The dozen words he had spoken to Viggo …hi, glad you’re here, we’ll have a beer sometime, need anything, yell… literally 12 words…had been soft and in some variant of English that he had to strain to understand. Football crazy, Peter had said, and the guy had indeed vanished, to watch a match. Viggo understood football to mean soccer. He liked it himself.
I am so fucked. And between the real names and the character names? Totally screwed. Charm counted for something, and when he was desperate, he smiled charmingly, and people were nice to the new boy. He just put himself into the hands of the production assistants, and tried to keep up. They couldn’t say his name, though. Viggo. It came out Wigo (as in Why go?) and Wiggo, and Whiggie, and Figgie, until he finally said, it rhymes with ego. Then it happened. No ego-Viggo. He would have laughed if it had been funny. How they did *not* know him. Not that he didn’t have one, it’s just that he was so pliable, he had to be right now. He didn’t know Aragorn, not yet. He wondered for the millionth time what had really happened to the previous Aragorn.
The hobbits were prancing around telling jokes, and he wasn’t paying attention. The Hobbits and the Elf. Elfboy, Legolas. Orlando. Viggo had no idea where he came from, other than that he had one of those poncy British accents. When had he become an Anglophobe? Richard f…. The Hobbits ran as a pack, and Orlando was either in the lead or right behind. Elijah was incredibly young. A woman periodically wandered by and removed a cigarette from his hand. The Hobbits and the Elf reminded him of Henry and his friends. Games, fantasies. What was that? “Orli?” What a name, Orlando. Old fashioned. Like his own.
The elf turned and smiled. Had he said that out loud? Apparently so.
“You guys think I can get an autograph of Sharpe for my kid?”
Orli nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, ask Sean.”
Sean, yeah, okay, ANOTHER Sean…there were only about 200 on the production in total. He was going to put his foot in it before he was done. Of course, he could always just say, Sean, and probably the right person would look up and ask him what he wanted. He needed sleep. 24 hours in New Zealand, and he was half into his Aragorn costume, half in his street clothes, and his head was still in California. Or maybe it had reached Hawaii by now.
“Sean?”
“Yes, Beanie.” The Hobbits nodded agreement, their absurd curls bobbing.
“Beanie?”
Orli nodded enthusiastically. “Sean.” He supplied helpfully.
“Yes?” And there he was, at the door. Viggo realized he had not seen his co-star out of his Boromir clothes and makeup. Well, when would he have seen him? Here Sean was, bearded, but wigless, looking vaguely familiar, smiling at him, a warm smile that crinkled his face. Boromir but not Boromir, Viggo’s foggy, jet-lagged brain told him.
“Ready?” Viggo took the outstretched hand, and Sean hauled him to his feet.
“Where are you guys going?” Orli queried.
“You aren’t coming,” Sean said firmly.
Five sniffs echoed in the room. Five faces looked forlornly at Sean and then at Viggo, hopefully.
“Say no, Viggo.” When Sean rolled Viggo's name off his tongue, the “e” sound lasted a minute and a half. Veeeeego. Viggo liked the sound of it.
“No, Veeeeego,” Viggo repeated. Sean rolled his eyes. The Hobbits and the Elf giggled.
“Come on, then.” He looked that the Hobbits and the Elf. “Not you.” He shook his head. “Go surfing or bungee jumping or parachute out of something, or set something on fire, or something.”
Viggo followed Sean out the door. “Set something on fire?”
“Don’t ask. My car is here. I want to show you something. We’ll go to Daffy’s later, maybe.”
“Daffy’s?”
“Yeah, we have a favorite place, but I call it Daffy’s, because it gets Daffy, once the Hobbits show up.”
He climbed into Sean’s car, a Suburban. His companion drove outside of the city, up a mountainside and parked the car. He didn’t waste words, but on Viggo, tonight, any conversation would have been a waste of words. Sean picked something out of the back. A small cooler, and Viggo heard the chink of bottles and raised his eyebrows. Sean grinned at him. “What, you’re a picky eater? That’s my role.”
They walked to the overlook, a mountainside outside of Wellington, and looked down, at the crescent of white water lapping the shoreline, mountains blue in the distance, sparkling blue water beneath. “Smell that?”
Viggo breathed in the air. “I can’t smell anything.” He said after a while.
“That’s right. Clean air.” Sean closed his eyes and leaned back. “Clean air.” Sean reached into his sack and pulled out a small cloth, spread it on the rock between them, pulled some cheese, some pears, and two bottles of beer. Viggo caught his breath. “Is that Havarti?” Sean nodded. Viggo picked up the second wrapped package. “Saga blue?” From the bottom of the bag, Sean removed a loaf of bread. Viggo picked it up and inhaled deeply. “Oooohhh.” A pop and a fizz, and Sean held out a bottle of beer. “Not Danish beer. Or Danish bread.” He smiled. “PJ said that you spent some time in Denmark. Hope you liked the cheese.”
Viggo nodded. “Dreamed about it on the plane.”
Sean’s eyes widened. Viggo looked at the beer. Unpasturized. And wheat beer. God bless the man.
Sean lifted the beer bottle. “Have 8 more of these, too.” He popped the cap off his own bottle and lifted it. “Welcome to New Zealand, Viggo Mortensen,” Sean clinked his bottle against Viggo’s. Viggo took a sip and then tilted his head back, and took a long gulp.
They stared at the water and the white waves on the shoreline, and munched, chewed, and gulped contentedly.
“I don’t have the dots all connected,” Viggo murmured.
“It will come,” Sean said. “Peter is a wise fellow.”
“He screwed up once.”
Sean looked sharply at Viggo, and sighed, gazed off into the distance. “That was a studio choice, and PJ and Fran let the studio run them over.” He shook his head. “It’s a risk. No giant name to hinge this on. They wanted Sean Connery for Gandalf, but couldn’t afford him. They wanted God knows who for Boromir, and they got me.” He grinned. “I nearly wrecked my car when my agent called. I was that excited.” Sean looked at Viggo shrewdly. “And I wouldn’t switch the part for anything, either.”
Viggo raised an eyebrow.
“Rumors, you know.” Sean swigged his beer. “I like the parts that are catalysts. The ones where my character forces an issue, or makes it all come together.”
Viggo nodded. “Yeah. So tell me about … Boromir as a catalyst.”
Sean took a swig of his beer and bit into a hunk of bread. “He’s a man. Men are weak. . “Boromir is a soldier. Strong, good fighter. His father’s pride and joy. There’s another brother, whom Boromir loves.”
“Faramir.”
“Yeah, Faramir. The father despises Faramir because he thinks Faramir is a weakling. Boromir is a soldier, a hero of Gondor. The first born of the Steward. weak. After a battle in which the Gondorians reclaim Osgiliath, and after which Boromir gets a big cheer from the thronging multitudes,” Sean snickered, “Denethor – that’s the father – sends Boromir on a quest to obtain the ring for him. So Boromir has two strikes against him. He wants to please his father … obtain the ring, and he is a man…weak like men…and he feels the power of the ring pulling him in. It’s a double whammy.”
“And Boromir tries to take the ring from Frodo.”
Sean nodded. “And Frodo escapes from Boromir, runs into Aragorn, offers the ring to Aragorn. Aragorn doesn’t take it. ‘I would have followed you to the gates of Mount Doom,’ he tells Frodo. At least that is what the script says now, who knows what it will say tomorrow. And then the fight breaks out. Aragorn lets Frodo go.”
“So how is Boromir a catalyst?”
“Isildur was weak. And his blood flows in Aragorn’s veins. In Boromir’s too, I think, if I understand the genealogies right. But anyway, men are weak. The elves are always pissing on about that, about the weakness of men. The pride of men. How greedy, how power hungry they are. Poncy elves.”
Viggo snickered. “I imagined they were always clean, always well groomed.”
“Yeah. And that men were scruffy. That was part of the problem with Stewart, by the way. He didn’t scruff up well. And he didn’t look much older than Orli, whatever they tried to do to him.” Sean looked Viggo over appraisingly. “Don’t think you’ll have a problem with that. I ‘xpect you scruff up quite nicely.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, mate.”
Viggo watched strong jaw muscles chew another hunk of bread.
“Men are weak. Aragorn knows this. It has scared the piss out of him all his life, how weak men are. How weak his own ancestor was. Isildur. Couldn’t throw the damn ring back into the fire of Mount Doom. So Evil survived.” Sean took a swig from his beer and then bit off a hunk of his bread. “Good stuff, this,” he mumbled through the mouthful.
Sean squinted. “When Aragorn finds Boromir, dying, he tells him that he let Frodo go on alone. ‘Then you did what I could not,’ Boromir says to Aragorn. He sees this as his failure. In the end, Aragorn convinces him, or tries to, that he has died an honorable death in protecting the Hobbits. ‘You kept your honor.’ He reinterprets for Boromir. And Boromir extracts from him a promise, and,” Sean punctuated his sentence with his finger, “This is Aragorn’s turning point.” Sean stabbed at the cheese with the knife. “Want more of this?” Viggo nodded and Sean hacked him off a slice of cheese.
“This is the point at which Aragorn takes on the responsibility for the world of men, and he and Boromir switch places, basically. Until now, Boromir has protected Middle Earth from Mordor. At this point, Aragorn gradually assumes that role. He’s been hiding in shadows, afraid of what he is, a man, and weak like men, weak like Isildur. Boromir has tried to convince him that there is courage in men, and honor also. And in dying, he does so. And Aragorn has more strength, more integrity than Isildur. And he also has learned what Isildur never did, that the arrogance of man is his undoing. It was certainly Boromir’s.” Sean shook his head. “It is ever so, mate. Ever so.”
He lapsed into silence, broken by his jaws grinding bread and cheese.
“Aragorn says, to Boromir, ‘I do not know what strength is in my blood, but I swear to you, I will not let the White City fall.’ That is his promise to dying Boromir. And in making that promise, he is committed to fight Sauron to the end. His end or Sauron’s.” Sean shook his head. “I’m still fighting this out with Fran and Pippa. If this scene isn’t right, Aragorn’s motivation is shit.”
“But Boromir broke the Fellowship by trying to take the ring from Frodo.”
“Yes, that’s true. But without the breaking of the Fellowship, Aragorn remains outside the world of men. He’s not looking to be king. He tells Elrond, ‘I don’t want it, I never wanted it.’ He refuses take up the sword of man.” Sean bit into a hunk of cheese. “But once he makes a promise to a dying man, ‘I will not let the White City fall,’ he’s committed. To save the White City, the King must return. Aragorn must set aside the ranger and become what he was meant to be.” He looked at Viggo carefully. “This scene has got to be as perfect as we can make it. The whole movie, all three of them actually, hinge on this scene. ”
“I need to read more. When do we shoot it?”
“Next week, maybe early the week after. Depends on the weather.”
“Fuck.” So soon?
Sean nodded. Looked at Viggo and grinned. His smile, his good humored intensity, was infectious. But so was the measles. However, Viggo grinned back. Maybe everything would be okay. Maybe. This guy could be an anchor. Viggo liked anchors. He was a flake, he knew it. More weird than Fruitloops. Henry’s phrase. He drained his beer and accepted another one.
“So your character dies in the beginning of Two Towers?”
“Or at the end of Fellowship. Fran and PJ aren’t sure. Probably at the end of Fellowship.” Sean looked at Viggo and smiled grimly. “The script changes daily. Get used to it, mate.”
Viggo flexed his shoulders and winced.
“Long flight, it is.” Sean said sympathetically, handing Viggo another beer.
“Long flight, pinned in by a bald guy with his seat back, two meat packers on either side, and a kid in the seat behind me.” Viggo shook his head. “The most unappetizing view of a guy’s bald head. And I’m stiff and sore and I don’t know where the hell my brain is.” He grinned at Sean. “But this…” he held up the bread with a piece of cheese on it… “…this helps.” He paused and considered the beer and the scenery. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, mate.”
They watched the clouds scutter across the sky. How long? Viggo didn’t know. He sighed. I really need to get laid. His eyes widened. Shit, had he said that aloud? He looked at his hands, and then shot a sidelong look at Sean, who was watching him, eyes widened.
Viggo blushed and shivered. “I don’t know why I said that.” He exhaled. “I…ummm…well, I’m not filtering what I’m thinking very well right now, I guess.”
“Jet lag.” Sean nodded. “Well, I don’t put out on the first date, but I do a pretty good back rub. Liv says I have magic fingers.” Sean flexed his long fingers and patted the log between his knees. “Sit here.”
“Yeah?” Viggo looked hopeful. He needed to get laid, but a good back rub wasn’t to be sneezed at. He edged over and settled between Sean’s knees.
“Yeah.” Long fingers pressed his temples, moving in a slow, small circle. Thumbs behind his skull, held him immobile, warm fingers pushed away the tension knotting his brain.
“Mmmmmm.” Through eyes partially opened, he watched the light dim over Wellington, shimmering golden on the bay, and then the water turned dark, gleaming with sparkles of lights reflected off the shore. The long, warm fingers stroked his temples, his forehead, his sinuses, hitting pressure points, first lightly, then more intensely. The fingers worked their way to his scalp, massaging gently, then harder. A gentle hand tilted his head forward, strong fingers massaging gently at the base of his skull, working their way down his neck, slowly stretching each muscle, working the knots, one by one. Damn, this guy was good.
"Mmmmmm," he repeated. "Will you marry me?"
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Date: 2004-08-06 07:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-06 08:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-07 02:10 am (UTC)*looks at you with puppy eyes*
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Date: 2004-08-07 12:43 pm (UTC)Can't wait for the next chapter!
~Kris
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Date: 2004-08-07 09:42 pm (UTC)There were so many lines in this that I just loved. I really liked Sean's interpretation of Boromir's place in the story. *loves Boromir*
So, when is the other shoe going to drop?
dropping the shoe
Date: 2004-08-08 09:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-09 12:00 pm (UTC)rest of the story
Date: 2004-08-20 01:13 pm (UTC)So I hope that's okay.