moldava | Summer fluffy fic

It feels a bit funny to be posting a summery fic today of all days.. it's been raining all night and all of today and temperature's dropped to October-like levels *g*

But when I started writing this is was sunny and way too hot..

Title: Beautiful idiots
Author:

moldava
Pairing: Sean/Viggo
Rating: R-ish
Disclaimer: they're not mine, regretfully
Warnings: fluff, food and not much of a plot

Sean slitted his eyes against the glare of the afternoon sun and took a deep, shaky breath. The air was dry, burning hot, and carried the scent of baked earth, rosemary and sea salt.

He smiled at a swallow flying low above his head and promised himself that he would not screw up this chance he had been given to set things right.

He was still nervous, but determined, when the only taxi on the island drove up to the house in a cloud of dust and Viggo climbed out of it.

“Nice place you got here, you’re treating yourself well, Bean…” Viggo said, stepping back from a too-brief hug to take in the low house, built of local yellow stone, facing an impossibly blue sea on one side and shielded from view of the road by silvery olive trees on the other side.

Bean, not Sean, Sean thought, grimacing inside. Bean as in ‘hey, old mate’, not Sean as in ‘hey, old lover’…

“I like to treat myself to all the best things in life, Vig, you should know that by now..” Sean grinned and shrugged nonchalantly. And if I had it my way, you would be one of them… “Here, let me take that and show you inside, you look tired..”

Sean bent to pick up the scruffy-looking bag the driver had dumped on the road and motioned Viggo towards the door.

“You know how it feels… As long as you’re shooting and they need, you keep going whatever it takes, then when you’re done and you can let go all the energy seems to drain from you and exhaustion sets in…” Viggo gave Sean a small, apologetic smile and pushed a strand of caramel-coloured hair behind his ear.

“I know, and I’m glad you agreed to stop here for a few days before heading back to the States. You’ll get some rest and I’ll take care of you…” Forever, if you’ll just let me.. “Why don’t you take a long shower and then lie down for a bit?”

“Feels bad to get here and fall asleep on you…” Viggo grinned sheepishly, but the grooves at the corners of his mouth showed just how exhausted he was.

“Don’t be silly! You get some rest, I’ll go for a swim and wake you up for dinner. Okay?” Sean insisted.

“Okay,” Viggo nodded, relieved, and a tanned hand reached out to clasp Sean’s shoulder.

They both remained frozen for a second, then the shrill cry of a gull startled them and Viggo let his arm drop.

“Rest Vig, everything will be okay…”

There was more in Sean’s green eyes than the assurance that Viggo’s taking a nap right after arriving would not bother him and for a moment Viggo hesitated, something quivering on his lips. But he just nodded and let Sean guide him to a shady room. He was so tired…

The bed in the cool, shady room looked so inviting that Viggo whimpered with need as, almost of their own will, his fingers went to lace with Sean’s and squeeze them gratefully.

Sean gently returned the squeeze and nudged Viggo.

“Rest, there will be time later…” he murmured, a hint of promise in his voice.

***

It had been for the best, Sean thought as he worked in the kitchen.

The swim in the cool waters of the sea, with small silvery fish playing around his legs, and the methodic work he was doing now had helped him relax and clear his mind. Just seeing Viggo had been enough to make him start to panic and that was not going to help, not when there was so much at stake.

He pulled the bowls close and started arranging their contents on the rounds of toasted peasant bread.
Fresh tomatoes, goat cheese and basil.
Grilled peppers, garlic and mint.
Olives chopped to a fine paste and drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil.

As his hands worked, Sean let his mind wander.

Images from the past came to visit him and he cursed himself. Viggo might be the photographer, but Sean was the one with a photographic memory, a memory filled with images of Viggo.

He could see them now as if in a carousel…

Running on the beach with Viggo, tackling him into the surf and kissing him hard, pressing him down into the wet sand while the water drenched them both and they could taste salt into the kiss…

Grabbing handfuls of sheets, face down on the bed and biting his own hand to stifle a scream while Viggo thrust slowly into him and Sean felt that if he would die just then he would die happy…

Resting against a tree trunk, with Viggo nestled between his legs and Boromir’s heavy cloak draped around them both. His fingers slowly stroking the warm, hairy skin of Viggo’s belly under Aragorn’s leather pants…

But one image shadowed all the others, that of the first time. Heat still made Sean’s cheeks burn as he remembered how embarrassed he’d felt at getting a hard-on while Viggo was undressing in the trailer they’d shared, how ashamed when Viggo had turned back and noticed, how hot when Viggo’s eyes had burned at the sight and his long fingers had reached out and splayed possessively over the bulge at Sean’s crotch…

The imperious beep of the oven timer startled Sean out of his nostalgic reverie. He wiped his hands on a kitchen towel and checked the oven, where small tomatoes were slowly simmering, capped with a paste made with breadcrumbs softened in olive oil and mixed with anchovies and oregano. He took the tray out to cool and nodded to himself before turning the lamb chops in their marinade of olive oil, garlic and fresh herbs. From the fridge he took a bottle of chilled white wine that immediately fogged in the warm air of the kitchen. As he was uncorking it, a rumpled-looking Viggo entered the room.

Sean’s eyes hungrily examined the pillow-creased face, noticing how Viggo’s eyes seemed clearer now and how some of the exhaustion had vanished from his face.

“Hey,” he murmured softly, “I was about to come and wake you up. We’re almost ready here.”

“Something definitely smells ready,” Viggo said, lifting his nose to sniff appreciatively at the scents permeating the room and grinning sheepishly as his stomach rumbled in response.

“I sort of get the message,” Sean winked and wiped his hands on the back of jeans-clad thighs. “I’ll put the lamb chops on the grill and while they cook we can have a glass of wine with this stuff,” he explained, picking up the tray with the three kinds of bruschetta. “We’re dining outside..” he added, pointing through the kitchen window to a tiled terrace, outfitted with table, chairs and a barbecue.

Viggo looked out at the pots of geranium lining the outside wall of the terrace, the flowers a dazzling red against the hazy blue of the sea. He lifted his eyes to the pergola, its thick vine leaves shading an area of the terrace where two comfortable-looking loungers had been placed, a book abandoned on one of them, then his gaze returned to settle on Sean. It will be hard to leave all of this, he thought.

“It all looks too good to be true,” Viggo whispered, his eyes following Sean as he headed out of the kitchen carrying the tray and caressing his turned back, safe in the knowledge that his wistful, yearning look would go undetected by those green eyes.

***

“More wine?” Sean asked, leaning back in the wicker chair and stroking his belly as if to check just how full it was. “Or more strawberries?”

Viggo closed his eyes, praying that the moan raising in his throat would get lost along its way up and losing his battle with it. It sounded embarrassingly loud amid the soft night sounds and Viggo decided that if he was going to hell, he might as well do so in style.

“What about more of you?” he asked, opening his eyes again so that he could search for a response on Sean’s face even before he could voice one and wincing when he registered his astonishment. “Guess not, should have know I’d blown my chances when I allowed us to drift apart once the reshoots and premieres for the Rings ended…”

It had been so easy to catch up with each other and fall for each other all over again as long as the circumstances kept bringing them together now and then, but when the opportunities ceased to be offered to them, they’d somehow failed to create new ones for themselves. And Viggo had been alone, alone in a way he’d not know he could be before, before Sean…

“You fool, you damn beautiful idiot..” in a moment Sean was by Viggo’s side, pushing away his shielding hands and lifting his face. The stunned tenderness in Sean’s eyes softened his words. “Why do you think I asked you to come over for a visit once you were done shooting in Spain?”

“So that you could force me to rest and cook for me?” Viggo whispered, almost teasingly now that he could, now that he knew from the look in Sean’s eyes that everything would be all right again. “And I’ll take that damn beautiful idiot as a compliment since I don’t think you’ve been much cleverer than I’ve been and since I think you happen to be a lot more beautiful than I am…” he added softly, tracing with artist’s fingertips the planes of Sean’s face, something he’d done night after night in his mind as he lay awake, filled with bitter longing.

“I read something about you only a couple of weeks ago.. they said you might be getting married again..” Viggo’s lips tightened, as if reporting that piece of gossip hurt, they way it had hurt him when he’d read it. “You have no idea how reading that made me feel..” he whispered.

“Oh fuck..” Sean swore and pulled Viggo up from the chair and into his arms. “That was not me saying that, Vig, it was just someone doing a bit of wishful thinking and the press doing the rest.. I thought doing the disappearing act was the best thing to do and I came over here. And called you. I’d read you were about to finish shooting in Spain and figured that if I didn’t take the chance now I might as well forget all about it, about us. I was sort of losing hope on waiting for a miracle to happen and set things straight between us.”

Sean tightened the circle his arms made around Viggo’s back, as if to hold him close and keep the world out, and sighed, the feeling of just how right that was making his heart skip a beat.

“We should be together, Vig, and we should never let things make us drift apart again…” Sean’s voice was soft, muffled by Viggo’s hair, and mixed determination and vulnerability. He knew what he wanted, but he also wanted to be sure that it was what Viggo wanted too..

Viggo had buried his face in the crook of Sean’s neck and had been breathing in the scent of his skin, so achingly familiar, so much missed. Now he raised his head, his eyes luminous.

“I have you and I’m not letting go of you,” he said, his voice soft but assured, his fingers curling around Sean’s upper arms. “No more chicks with fancy names for you..”

“Just you,” Sean purred, catlike, as his palms explored under Viggo’s shirt, moving up the warm skin of his back.

Viggo’s breath hitched, then he grinned.

“Just me… You’ve not been entirely a good host, you know…”

“No?” Sean asked, too distracted by the way Viggo’s muscles were tensing under his hands to sound truly piqued.

“No,” Viggo shook his head. “You left me all alone in that big bed all afternoon when I needed company, your company..”

“Oh..” Sean schooled his face into a crestfallen expression when all he wanted to do was grin like a fool. “You’re right, a good host would never have done that.. Maybe you’ll let me remedy by keeping you company all through the night?” he asked, green eyes burning.

“Thought you’d never ask..”