That

[vbmods.livejournal.com]

Title: That
Author: helena_s_renn
Rating: PG
Warnings: Angst lite
Prompt(s): #20: trust, "stirring the concentric circles" and a picture of Fidel's
Disclaimer: As always, this is fiction. It never happened.
Summary: Viggo revists



It would be ten years, later in the winter, or summer in NZ. Viggo went back months early, just sort of wandering. It turned into his one walk-about, with some driving. Time being what it was, always passing too quickly, he purposefully wandered into Fidel's, a lock and key to various dusty memories.

At the door, Viggo beat back the sense of déjà vu he'd been feeling about the place as foresight. The furniture had been moved around. A young couple sat across from each other, immersed in themselves, at the closest thing to 'their' table. Standing there, he caught himself pulling at his right earlobe and tingling as he remembered that night. And that conversation.

Sean had raised his eyes, slung that look. Viggo was entranced with the gold-tipped lashes. Opening his mouth with a flick of tongue to the point of his upper lip below two days' stubble, the rolling voice like green hills and open ore pits bored into his belly. There was a powerful attraction, new, no denying that. Tha', all the drivel he'd heard before and since was new and relevant then: rebound, good mates, a little drunk, time nearly done here. Viggo had sat back, finished his beer, and made painfully nice for the rest of the evening. It was a rare thing for him to put himself on a limb, rare to do it for a man, and rare still to be turned down. Maybe Sean was right but damn, it had stung. That blond devil had dropped a stone in Viggo's pond and they'd ridden away from each other on the concentric circles.

The hostess beckoned him and led him into the main room, making it clear he could pick any free table he liked. He chose another, where he'd been on the other end of such a chat. He'd have to call that one a draw, though, a literal pissing contest. Picking up the menu, memorized and unchanged, Viggo chuckled at his antics at the decade remove. Gradually, little snatches of other times here filtered back. Such blind trust they'd all shared. Innocent, despite their filthy habits. He didn't know whether to smile or cry in the shady spot next to the walkway into their tiny, five-table courtyard.

Some feeling, a tangible anticipation told him Sean would walk in, sit, like his presence would triangulate something out there within the sphere of Karma or chance, and they'd pick up their broken thread. Two hours later, he was still there, replete on local fish and microbrew. Viggo paid his bill and instead picked up his unplanned trail, boots pointed towards the next unassuming landmark. Maybe next time, maybe in winter, maybe never, as far as him seeing the man again on what was sacred soil for all of the Nine and the hundreds who had made them happen. It was just good to be here, breathing the air. The ghost faded a little, and the evening danced on, a sybarite virgin.

Comments

[helena-s-renn.livejournal.com]

i swear, i kept expecting sean to walk in. it was kind of a surprise, or anticlimactic, that he didn't. thanks for the comment.