ext_46181 (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
v-angelique.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fellowshippers2006-03-31 04:56 pm
v-angelique.livejournal.com) wrote in fellowshippers2006-03-31 04:56 pm
Un Cadeau du Roi (1/8)
Title: Un Cadeau du Roi (1/8)
Author: Viktoria Angelique
Email: viktoria_angelique@hotmail.com
Pairings: anything's possible among VM, BB, DM, HS, DW, OB, EW (Monaboyd this part)
Rating: series PG-13
Disclaimer: AU and very not true.
Feedback: Please do! It's very much appreciated.
A/N: So here it is. A little earlier than I expected, but all parts are finished so why not start posting? This is my first historical mystery AU, featuring a cast of numerous LOTR characters, a photojournalist with a tragic past, and a 400 year old secret. Historical mystery is my favourite fictional genre, so I am thrilled to present my first crack at it. Please, with a cherry on top, let me know what you think! Also, a note on banners: There will be one per part, and many of the photos are my own. Though occasional details might be fudged in a particular section, most of the places in the story are places I've lived. If you're curious about details in a particular section, feel free to ask!
When Viggo Mortensen was forty-six years old, he went on a mission.
Viggo had been a well-respected journalist for years, decades even—two of them, since the tender age of twenty-five when he had managed an interview with a death row inmate. It was technically unsanctioned by the newspaper, but God what a story he came up with, so full of compassion and brash spirit that he was promoted to senior staff within the year.
It had been years, however, since that same brash spirit had seen the light. If you asked Sean, Viggo’s long-time editor, he would say that the flame had already started to gutter ten years before, when Sean first became editor-in-chief. The nineties were an exciting time, and anyone could see that, but Viggo’s standard human-interest stories were beginning to take a toll on his soul. Paid by the story, he wrote features on the side for TIME and National Geographic, travelling the world and collecting stories. He told the tale of a twenty year old AIDS victim, an American boy who had seen his lover beaten to death just a year before Matthew Shepard’s name was first heard on CNN. He took photos of women in Nicaragua, telling their stories for the first time as refugees from more hostile nations where husbands were beaten and killed. His most famous photo was of a child, two years old, his huge brown eyes reflecting fear and hopelessness, the child of a rape by rebel forces, the mother only sixteen. By the time things were really becoming interesting for American photojournalists, Viggo had seen enough.
It was sympathy that kept Viggo well paid and comfortable, rarely leaving New York these days, depending on Sean’s goodwill and an abundance of stock assignments. He covered the progress of aid organizations he had once tracked all over Asia, Africa, and South America from the comfort of their New York offices, did the UN for a while. His language skills got him places, and he was valuable, but Sean knew that in reality the paper was wasting its time. When Viggo wrote with his heart, he was fucking brilliant, but that heart hadn’t been seen unveiled in a very long time.
“Mortensen.” The British voice was gruff, but with an undertone of understanding that Viggo suspected most on the payroll did not hear. Or maybe they just didn’t bother to listen. He looked up from the cardboard box and smiled, extended a hand.
“Sean.” The two men pulled each other into a friendly embrace, and when Sean pulled back he got a good look at his friend. Viggo was skinny, and a couple of days’ stubble graced his chin. His eyes were gaunt, sunken-looking, and Sean cursed inwardly. The things he saw, back in the day… but this wasn’t what Viggo was looking for, now. Europe was safe. People weren’t dying of hate crimes and disease in Europe, or at least that’s what Viggo could kid himself with. Sean knew that it begged to be pointed out—people are dying in America, Mortensen, and you fucking know it—but he was here as a friend, not as an editor. He was here to say goodbye.
“I’ll miss you, you fucker. You call, you know? If you need anything.”
Viggo nodded, but didn’t respond directly. “I’ll be seeing you, Sean. I’ll be back.” He lifted the box, shifted it to his hip. When he turned in the doorway Sean was standing in silhouette, backed by the bright sunlight in the window, the centre of attention in an office that hadn’t been empty in fifteen years.
“What’s this book about, anyway?” Sean asked, realizing for the first time, watching his friend in the doorway, that Viggo had never told him.
A laugh, hollow but still there. A juggling of the box on his hip. “It’s about what I find, Sean.”
And with a slight incline of the head, Viggo Mortensen was gone. In this life at least, it was the last time the two men would ever cross paths.
The flight was less than seven hours. JFK to Dublin, and then on to Shannon, but Viggo got off before that. His destination had been chosen, literally, by throwing a tack at a wall-mounted map of Western Europe, and he had to laugh at his unorthodox methods, the kind of a laugh that he felt like he hadn’t uttered in years. And it was laughable, he admitted, this war-torn heroic journalist now traipsing around Europe in search of a slice of human interest that might warrant a coffee table book. It was rather sad, in fact. Viggo didn’t care about truth and beauty anymore. Viggo was out to find happy people, interesting but happy. He wouldn’t watch another admirable human being’s life expire in front of his very eyes. He couldn’t afford, once again, to wish roles were reversed.
“Ticket, please?” Viggo looked up into the eyes of a rather ticked-off looking ticket agent, blonde hair pulled into a bun so tight she probably suffered from chronic migraines. Viggo smiled, but his heart wasn’t in it, and so instead he ruffled around his bag and produced the e-ticket and his passport. “Gate fourteen,” the woman volunteered, and then his duffle was swung onto a conveyer and he was heading back through security, back onto another flight, this time only an hour. He rolled his eyes at the Ryan Air snack menu, three euro for a semi-decent cup of coffee, and settled for the bottle of mineral water in his backpack instead. Fifty-two minutes later, he was landing in Cork, and his adventure had begun.
“Spare change, sir?” Viggo shook his head at the man, the first voice directed at him since he had gotten out of the cab, and then, feeling pity, turned on his heel and dropped a fifty-cent piece into the paper cup, continuing across the bridge with some satisfaction. A map from the airport had helped orient him, and with his things safely stowed at the hotel, he set out to find what he was looking for—whatever that was.
The Grand Parade was busy in early afternoon, for it was Friday, and school had just let out for the week. Pre-pubescent girls in green jumpers and stockings gave him suspicious looks as he passed, and yeah, maybe it wouldn’t kill him to have a shower and a shave, but what of it? He ran his fingers over the inscriptions on the Nationalist Monument, tipping an imaginary hat at the names, and continued on down the thoroughfare, past the English market and towards the centre. At the corner he screwed up his nose at the McDonalds, but at second glance decided that, as this one served cappuccino, it couldn’t really hurt to indulge. Coffee in hand, he continued on down Patrick Street and was confronted with his first victim.
“Come out ye black and tans, come out and fight me like a man! Show your wives how you won medals down in Flanders. Tell them how the IRA made you run like hell today from the green and lovely lanes in Killeshandra…”
Viggo smiled as he watched the pair, coins piling up in the open violin case in salute to the patriotic tune. He settled on a bench just opposite, not close enough to be presumptuous but still within earshot of the slight singer’s voice, when he finished his tune, setting down his bódhran as he addressed the fiddler standing next to him.
“Not bad, eh Dommeh? Quite a lot of pence in there, innit?” he remarked with a sparkle in disarming green eyes.
“Shuddup, Bills!” the other man answered affectionately, rosining his bow with a cool effectiveness. “They’re ‘cents,’ remember? Y’aren’t gonna look bloody Irish for long, not like that… chance is the Garda will haul you off the minute you’re discovered,” he mumbled, but a teasing smile told Viggo that he was only kidding, and the Scot didn’t look too concerned as they launched into a set of reels.
After an hour, Viggo was convinced that he was either invisible, or being purposefully ignored. He had taken a few shots from the bench, afraid to get closer for sake of professional respect. Maybe later he would ask, when they had finished busking, but his idea was pre-empted when the fiddler finished packing up and strode purposefully over to the bench with a grin on his face.
“Name’s Dominic, mate. Fancy a cuppa? You pay, I won’t sue,” he offered amiably, nodding at the camera bag as he extended his hand. Viggo laughed in turn, knowing that actually, there was nothing near grounds for a lawsuit in the situation, not to mention the fact that the men probably didn’t have a busking licence, but he wasn’t one to argue details.
“It’s Viggo. And sure thing… I hope you don’t mind, my photographing. It’s for a book…”
“Nah, mate. I’m just playing with you,” Dominic assured, nodding at the man who was counting money in place before shoving the bódhran into a round black bag and getting to his feet. “That’s Billy, there. He fancies a nice cup of tea himself, after an honest day’s work,” Dominic explained with an ironic wink, and Viggo just nodded. Billy, unlike Dominic, seemed quite reserved, almost suspicious, but was coaxed into stepping over, shaking Viggo’s hand, and following the other two to a café in an alley near St. Peter and Paul’s.
“You know, I’ll never understand why they couldn’t pick just one saint for their arsing church,” Dominic commented with a grin as they ducked inside and ordered three cups of tea. “Might as well have gone with the whole deck, all twelve of ‘em, if they couldn’t choose just one apostle.”
Viggo laughed, but Billy just shook his head and crossed himself, probably not seriously, but Viggo couldn’t be sure. When they sat on leather loveseats, either side of a low glass table, Viggo couldn’t help put notice the pressure between the two men’s thighs and the aura of protection Dominic seemed to lend to his partner. Viggo wondered if he could capture such a thing on film, anymore, or if his capacity to document human affection had been destroyed along with his capacity to experience it. Something to discuss with his shrink, he supposed.
“So, Viggo. What kind of book are you writing, then? Are we going to be famous?” Dominic grinned and raised his cup to Viggo before taking a sip. Billy just stared at his own knees.
“It’s a… well honestly, I don’t know yet. I want to take pictures of people, interesting people. Maybe get their stories, write them down…”
Dominic inclined an eyebrow. “You don’t know what the hell you’re doing, do you mate?”
Viggo laughed and shook his head, sipping his own tea and cursing as it burned his lip. “No I… well I suppose I don’t. But I’m not completely off my rocker, I mean, I am…was… a journalist.”
“Was?” Dominic asked. “What the fuck did you do then?”
“I didn’t do anything, I mean I wasn’t fired. I left. Wanted something more… I don’t know.” Viggo shrugged.
“Real?” Billy suggested, and Viggo realized it was the first time Billy had spoken to him. His eyes were a glassy green, almost clear, and alarmingly piercing. Viggo’s own gaze dropped, surreptitiously.
“I… I already did real. Years ago, I was real. It’s…”
“Didn’t work for you?” Dominic supplied with a sympathetic smile.
“Too painful.”
“Ah, but the world’s painful, mate,” Dominic pointed out. “Mind, our stories aren’t that bad, but if you just look around, pain will find you. Always does.” Viggo nodded, wishing that the young man were wrong.
“Well, I won’t go looking for it, anyway. But what about the two of you? Would you consent to being interviewed, perhaps? Doesn’t have to be formal or anything, just a mini-recorder and some simple questions…”
“You want our life stories?” Billy asked. Second time.
“Yeah, well, I mean…”
“It won’t be quick. It won’t be simple. Are you still in?” Billy was staring, but Viggo couldn’t turn away this time. He drew in a deep breath, nodded slowly.
“Let’s do it.”
“I was born in Glasgow,” Billy began, feet in Dominic’s lap on a well-worn sofa, his eyes closed, but still managing to appear guarded as Dominic rubbed slow circles int his ankles. “1968. I have a sister, Margaret. No brothers. I came to Ireland in 1990.” He paused, looked up, focused on Viggo. “You want anything before that, you’re not going to get it,” he warned, and Viggo just nodded. No sense pressing this early on, not with someone so cautious. Billy nodded back, satisfied, and closed his eyes again, settling back again the armrest and stretching his legs further into Dominic’s hands. “Right then. 1990, I arrived in Donegal. My parents were dead, sister married, and I had little reason to stay in Scotland. I wasn’t exactly poor, but I didn’t have a lot. I worked at a pub for a while, and a man I worked with taught me to drum in my spare time. I was shite for it at first, but I learn quickly. Me mum taught me to sing when I was just a wee ‘un, and it didn’t take long for me to pick up some of the songs the blokes would sing after getting a bit pissed… I knew some tunes in Scots Gaelic, and Irish isn’t so different, so… Well anyway, I met Dominic in ’99. I was down in Galway by then, after a brief stint in Connemara with…. well, it didn’t work out. Anyhow, in Galway, I met Dom. He was a bit crazy, I could see that even then, but when he got to playing that thing…” Billy paused again, but this time when his eyes opened he didn’t even see Viggo, and the two men shared a secret smile. “…it was fantastic. Everyone loved him around town, you know, and he wasn’t even a Paddy.”
“Clearly,” Dom interrupted, but Billy just snorted and returned to his story.
“We shared a cheese and onion pasty one night after closing at the pub I was working at the time, and…”
“One thing led to another, you might say,” Dom finished with a wink. Billy grunted, but didn’t deny it.
“Right, well. We shared a room over the pub for two months, maybe, but we were… well let’s just say some blokes in town weren’t too keen on having a Scot working their favourite spot, and once they had another reason on their hands…” Viggo noticed that Dominic, too, closed his eyes at this point in the story, and his fingers seemed to tighten almost imperceptibly on Billy’s foot. “He was in a bad way, Dommeh was. I guess he looked like the weaker one, and well, I wouldn’t deny it…” Dominic rolled his eyes but didn’t contradict, and Viggo smiled. “Point is, they went after him, cornered him alone, and he was in a mighty bad way. And then, of course, they had me to reckon with.” Billy’s eyes were open again, and Viggo himself was almost frightened by the protective gleam, not lessened by time or memory. “The owner of the pub liked me, but after what I did to those boys, he couldn’t keep me. There would be talk, and if I wanted to keep my working papers, I had to get the hell out of there. So Dominic and I headed south, and after a little time in Killarney we ended up here.” Billy shrugged, as if to conclude the story.
“So what about jobs? Do you just busk, or do you do other things?” Viggo asked.
“Oh, we work,” Dom clarified. “Billy works at An Brog now, down on Oliver Plunkett street, and I mix cocktails at the Long Island. Plenty of love for the fairy boys down at that place, at least from the women,” he clarified with a slight smirk. “Anyway, we just started doing this for fun, and it’s a bit of money. Not the interesting sob story you were hoping for mate, I’m afraid.”
“No… no it’s fine, I… what about you, Dominic? I mean, how did you get here?” Viggo asked, angling the mic slightly to pick up Dominic’s voice.
“Oh well… my story’s not so interesting, I mean… I grew up in Germany, all over the fucking place, and when I was a teenager my parents moved us back. No siblings, just me, and when I got done with my schooling in Manchester I was too stoned to do uni, really. Too stoned to do much of anything, and they were sick of me. So I came to Ireland, you know, got some brains. Worked in Dublin for a long time, learned how to make fancy drinks and make people happy. Would’ve stayed, but I went to Galway with some mates for a change of scenery one summer and that’s where I found this one.” Billy smiled a rare genuine smile as Dominic squeezed his knee.
“And what about… the accident? I mean…”
“Okay first off mate, it was no fucking accident,” Dominic replied in a steelier tone than Viggo had yet heard from him. Viggo nodded.
“Sorry, I…”
“It’s just, not an accident. And as for me, I recovered. Bills took care of me, you know?” A fond smile. “I was bloodied up, a couple of cracked ribs, but none too worse for the wear. Scared me, of course, but I just learned to be a little more cautious. Can’t get all over him in public anymore, but then I never really could, I guess. Illusion or safety, or maybe I had a guardian angel somewhere…”
“You like the nasty stuff, don’t you?” Billy interrupted, his eyes focused on Viggo with a look of cool, determined anger. Not the type you’d like to meet in a darkened alley after you’d beaten up his boyfriend, indeed. “Sensationalist journalism, right? You invite yourself into our homes and then tell our sad fecking stories…”
“Bills…”
“No Dom. Let me finish. I think this man has some explaining to do. Why the fuck do you want to know these things, can you tell me that? Because I don’t understand why someone would get such a bloody kick out of another man’s pain… you don’t get it, do you? I watched my boyfriend lying in a fucking pool of blood, and I bet you’re grinning inside because it’ll make such a nice tragic ‘human angle’…”
“Billy, remember…”
“No, Dommeh! I think this man has some explaining to do, after you so kindly let him into our home.” Billy’s eyes were shooting daggers, and a lesser man would have been terrified, but Viggo stood his ground. This was it, this emotion… this was real. So, levelling his eyes with Billy’s, Viggo did something he hadn’t done in quite a long time. He told the truth.
“My lover died in Kosovo,” Viggo admitted, his tone calm and level as Dom gasped audibly. “The shelling was bad, really fucking bad, but that was Dave… always had to get the story, you know? He wanted people to see, the real pain that these people were facing everyday, the looks in the mothers’ eyes. He always had hoped for change, for a sense of social responsibility to kick these governments in the arse and make people realize… he wanted to be a lawyer, originally. Wanted to work for the UN or Amnesty International, but he decided to take pictures instead, thought the visual impact would make more of a difference than the law ever could. Still, if he had been a lawyer… well, if Dave had been a lawyer, I wouldn’t be sitting here beside you today.”
There was a pregnant silence, as Billy continued to stare, almost sizing Viggo up, and then Dominic reached out, and squeezed his hand, and the moment was past. “Did you see him?” Dominic whispered. “Before…”
“Yes. I was on assignment not far away, in Poland. Walesa had just been elected, but there were still Soviet troops, and I was doing a story… well in any event, I was able to get a jet in the moment I heard. He was in a military hospital there… the war hadn’t started yet, officially, but there was street violence everywhere, ethnic spats against the Albanians, and… it was brutal. I’ve watched people die, more times than I care to count, but I couldn’t handle that. I saw his body, still alive but ripped to shreds like that, barely recognizable. He… he opened his mouth, and he could still talk, but barely. He just whispered it, you know, the last ‘I love you,’ and I couldn’t take it… I didn’t want to believe. I walked out of that tent, sure that it was just a big fucking nightmare, and when I turned around and came back, he was dead.”
“Jesus,” Billy uttered, and this time the only undertone was respect.
“Yeah. Well, you know, I threw myself into my work. The next five years I did some of my best work, really dangerous stuff sometimes, or emotionally dangerous, at least. I was paid well, and my editors were happy, but I might as well have been dead. I had checked out, and I think the only reason I could handle some of it was that I was emotionally numb. I didn’t mind danger because I knew, in my heart, that I deserved to die. I hoped that I would see Dave, you know, after… but I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t so sure we would wind up in the same place, but I was well on my way to finding out. Anyway, before anything too dramatic could happen, I had this interview. Guy killed three men and a teenaged boy… his teenaged son. During the trial he was given the chance to tell his story, and I was picked for the job. I didn’t know all the details, but when I found out… well basically, this guy was a Neo-Nazi. He was extremely right wing, white supremacist, all that shit, but when he found out his son was queer he went insane. Murdered him, his lover, and two friends. Brutally raped, beat, and then murdered. I mean I’m talking to this man, who is telling me, completely straight-faced, how he raped his seventeen-year old son, and how the boy deserved it, and I just lost it. I hadn’t gotten mad in five years, not at all, but I snapped. I decked the guy, and was hauled out of there, fists still flying, and they never put me on the tough stories again.” Viggo paused, and the room was full with the silence. No one spoke for a moment, until he smiled and shrugged his shoulders, dismissing the case. “Well, I guess you didn’t ask for my story, exactly. I’ll be going now…”
“Wait.” Billy held a hand out, beckoning. “Stay.”
“I…”
“What I said… well, don’t worry about it. I assumed, and I had no right. You never can be too careful, but... please. You staying in a hotel, Viggo?” A nod. “Then you go get a good night’s rest, but come back tomorrow. We’ll meet for brunch; say ten at that same café? We might be able to give you some ideas of who to interview, and you can take more photographs if you like.”
Viggo nodded, and put his recorder away, rising to his feet. “That sounds fine to me. Thank you, both of you, for being honest,” he added with a slight smile. “So I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”
“Yeah. Tomorrow.” Billy nodded, but Dominic just stepped forward and pulled Viggo into a wordless hug. Viggo left the room without saying another word.
“Jesus, Billy! Did you have to go all psycho on him? Way to go! I mean all we have to do is keep him in town, and…”
“Dominic! Need I remind you of your own quite emotional reaction? It’s a touching story, yes, but you’re making a mistake, Dommeh. You care about him.”
Dominic glared at Billy, refusing to back down, and he knew that he was the only one who could really stand up to Billy like that and make an impact on the man. “This isn’t about me, Billy. You started caring before he ever opened his mouth.”
Billy sighed, and turned, and fastened the deadbolt before heading to the bedroom. Dominic was right. Always was.
Author: Viktoria Angelique
Email: viktoria_angelique@hotmail.com
Pairings: anything's possible among VM, BB, DM, HS, DW, OB, EW (Monaboyd this part)
Rating: series PG-13
Disclaimer: AU and very not true.
Feedback: Please do! It's very much appreciated.
A/N: So here it is. A little earlier than I expected, but all parts are finished so why not start posting? This is my first historical mystery AU, featuring a cast of numerous LOTR characters, a photojournalist with a tragic past, and a 400 year old secret. Historical mystery is my favourite fictional genre, so I am thrilled to present my first crack at it. Please, with a cherry on top, let me know what you think! Also, a note on banners: There will be one per part, and many of the photos are my own. Though occasional details might be fudged in a particular section, most of the places in the story are places I've lived. If you're curious about details in a particular section, feel free to ask!
When Viggo Mortensen was forty-six years old, he went on a mission.
Viggo had been a well-respected journalist for years, decades even—two of them, since the tender age of twenty-five when he had managed an interview with a death row inmate. It was technically unsanctioned by the newspaper, but God what a story he came up with, so full of compassion and brash spirit that he was promoted to senior staff within the year.
It had been years, however, since that same brash spirit had seen the light. If you asked Sean, Viggo’s long-time editor, he would say that the flame had already started to gutter ten years before, when Sean first became editor-in-chief. The nineties were an exciting time, and anyone could see that, but Viggo’s standard human-interest stories were beginning to take a toll on his soul. Paid by the story, he wrote features on the side for TIME and National Geographic, travelling the world and collecting stories. He told the tale of a twenty year old AIDS victim, an American boy who had seen his lover beaten to death just a year before Matthew Shepard’s name was first heard on CNN. He took photos of women in Nicaragua, telling their stories for the first time as refugees from more hostile nations where husbands were beaten and killed. His most famous photo was of a child, two years old, his huge brown eyes reflecting fear and hopelessness, the child of a rape by rebel forces, the mother only sixteen. By the time things were really becoming interesting for American photojournalists, Viggo had seen enough.
It was sympathy that kept Viggo well paid and comfortable, rarely leaving New York these days, depending on Sean’s goodwill and an abundance of stock assignments. He covered the progress of aid organizations he had once tracked all over Asia, Africa, and South America from the comfort of their New York offices, did the UN for a while. His language skills got him places, and he was valuable, but Sean knew that in reality the paper was wasting its time. When Viggo wrote with his heart, he was fucking brilliant, but that heart hadn’t been seen unveiled in a very long time.
“Mortensen.” The British voice was gruff, but with an undertone of understanding that Viggo suspected most on the payroll did not hear. Or maybe they just didn’t bother to listen. He looked up from the cardboard box and smiled, extended a hand.
“Sean.” The two men pulled each other into a friendly embrace, and when Sean pulled back he got a good look at his friend. Viggo was skinny, and a couple of days’ stubble graced his chin. His eyes were gaunt, sunken-looking, and Sean cursed inwardly. The things he saw, back in the day… but this wasn’t what Viggo was looking for, now. Europe was safe. People weren’t dying of hate crimes and disease in Europe, or at least that’s what Viggo could kid himself with. Sean knew that it begged to be pointed out—people are dying in America, Mortensen, and you fucking know it—but he was here as a friend, not as an editor. He was here to say goodbye.
“I’ll miss you, you fucker. You call, you know? If you need anything.”
Viggo nodded, but didn’t respond directly. “I’ll be seeing you, Sean. I’ll be back.” He lifted the box, shifted it to his hip. When he turned in the doorway Sean was standing in silhouette, backed by the bright sunlight in the window, the centre of attention in an office that hadn’t been empty in fifteen years.
“What’s this book about, anyway?” Sean asked, realizing for the first time, watching his friend in the doorway, that Viggo had never told him.
A laugh, hollow but still there. A juggling of the box on his hip. “It’s about what I find, Sean.”
And with a slight incline of the head, Viggo Mortensen was gone. In this life at least, it was the last time the two men would ever cross paths.
The flight was less than seven hours. JFK to Dublin, and then on to Shannon, but Viggo got off before that. His destination had been chosen, literally, by throwing a tack at a wall-mounted map of Western Europe, and he had to laugh at his unorthodox methods, the kind of a laugh that he felt like he hadn’t uttered in years. And it was laughable, he admitted, this war-torn heroic journalist now traipsing around Europe in search of a slice of human interest that might warrant a coffee table book. It was rather sad, in fact. Viggo didn’t care about truth and beauty anymore. Viggo was out to find happy people, interesting but happy. He wouldn’t watch another admirable human being’s life expire in front of his very eyes. He couldn’t afford, once again, to wish roles were reversed.
“Ticket, please?” Viggo looked up into the eyes of a rather ticked-off looking ticket agent, blonde hair pulled into a bun so tight she probably suffered from chronic migraines. Viggo smiled, but his heart wasn’t in it, and so instead he ruffled around his bag and produced the e-ticket and his passport. “Gate fourteen,” the woman volunteered, and then his duffle was swung onto a conveyer and he was heading back through security, back onto another flight, this time only an hour. He rolled his eyes at the Ryan Air snack menu, three euro for a semi-decent cup of coffee, and settled for the bottle of mineral water in his backpack instead. Fifty-two minutes later, he was landing in Cork, and his adventure had begun.
“Spare change, sir?” Viggo shook his head at the man, the first voice directed at him since he had gotten out of the cab, and then, feeling pity, turned on his heel and dropped a fifty-cent piece into the paper cup, continuing across the bridge with some satisfaction. A map from the airport had helped orient him, and with his things safely stowed at the hotel, he set out to find what he was looking for—whatever that was.
The Grand Parade was busy in early afternoon, for it was Friday, and school had just let out for the week. Pre-pubescent girls in green jumpers and stockings gave him suspicious looks as he passed, and yeah, maybe it wouldn’t kill him to have a shower and a shave, but what of it? He ran his fingers over the inscriptions on the Nationalist Monument, tipping an imaginary hat at the names, and continued on down the thoroughfare, past the English market and towards the centre. At the corner he screwed up his nose at the McDonalds, but at second glance decided that, as this one served cappuccino, it couldn’t really hurt to indulge. Coffee in hand, he continued on down Patrick Street and was confronted with his first victim.
“Come out ye black and tans, come out and fight me like a man! Show your wives how you won medals down in Flanders. Tell them how the IRA made you run like hell today from the green and lovely lanes in Killeshandra…”
Viggo smiled as he watched the pair, coins piling up in the open violin case in salute to the patriotic tune. He settled on a bench just opposite, not close enough to be presumptuous but still within earshot of the slight singer’s voice, when he finished his tune, setting down his bódhran as he addressed the fiddler standing next to him.
“Not bad, eh Dommeh? Quite a lot of pence in there, innit?” he remarked with a sparkle in disarming green eyes.
“Shuddup, Bills!” the other man answered affectionately, rosining his bow with a cool effectiveness. “They’re ‘cents,’ remember? Y’aren’t gonna look bloody Irish for long, not like that… chance is the Garda will haul you off the minute you’re discovered,” he mumbled, but a teasing smile told Viggo that he was only kidding, and the Scot didn’t look too concerned as they launched into a set of reels.
After an hour, Viggo was convinced that he was either invisible, or being purposefully ignored. He had taken a few shots from the bench, afraid to get closer for sake of professional respect. Maybe later he would ask, when they had finished busking, but his idea was pre-empted when the fiddler finished packing up and strode purposefully over to the bench with a grin on his face.
“Name’s Dominic, mate. Fancy a cuppa? You pay, I won’t sue,” he offered amiably, nodding at the camera bag as he extended his hand. Viggo laughed in turn, knowing that actually, there was nothing near grounds for a lawsuit in the situation, not to mention the fact that the men probably didn’t have a busking licence, but he wasn’t one to argue details.
“It’s Viggo. And sure thing… I hope you don’t mind, my photographing. It’s for a book…”
“Nah, mate. I’m just playing with you,” Dominic assured, nodding at the man who was counting money in place before shoving the bódhran into a round black bag and getting to his feet. “That’s Billy, there. He fancies a nice cup of tea himself, after an honest day’s work,” Dominic explained with an ironic wink, and Viggo just nodded. Billy, unlike Dominic, seemed quite reserved, almost suspicious, but was coaxed into stepping over, shaking Viggo’s hand, and following the other two to a café in an alley near St. Peter and Paul’s.
“You know, I’ll never understand why they couldn’t pick just one saint for their arsing church,” Dominic commented with a grin as they ducked inside and ordered three cups of tea. “Might as well have gone with the whole deck, all twelve of ‘em, if they couldn’t choose just one apostle.”
Viggo laughed, but Billy just shook his head and crossed himself, probably not seriously, but Viggo couldn’t be sure. When they sat on leather loveseats, either side of a low glass table, Viggo couldn’t help put notice the pressure between the two men’s thighs and the aura of protection Dominic seemed to lend to his partner. Viggo wondered if he could capture such a thing on film, anymore, or if his capacity to document human affection had been destroyed along with his capacity to experience it. Something to discuss with his shrink, he supposed.
“So, Viggo. What kind of book are you writing, then? Are we going to be famous?” Dominic grinned and raised his cup to Viggo before taking a sip. Billy just stared at his own knees.
“It’s a… well honestly, I don’t know yet. I want to take pictures of people, interesting people. Maybe get their stories, write them down…”
Dominic inclined an eyebrow. “You don’t know what the hell you’re doing, do you mate?”
Viggo laughed and shook his head, sipping his own tea and cursing as it burned his lip. “No I… well I suppose I don’t. But I’m not completely off my rocker, I mean, I am…was… a journalist.”
“Was?” Dominic asked. “What the fuck did you do then?”
“I didn’t do anything, I mean I wasn’t fired. I left. Wanted something more… I don’t know.” Viggo shrugged.
“Real?” Billy suggested, and Viggo realized it was the first time Billy had spoken to him. His eyes were a glassy green, almost clear, and alarmingly piercing. Viggo’s own gaze dropped, surreptitiously.
“I… I already did real. Years ago, I was real. It’s…”
“Didn’t work for you?” Dominic supplied with a sympathetic smile.
“Too painful.”
“Ah, but the world’s painful, mate,” Dominic pointed out. “Mind, our stories aren’t that bad, but if you just look around, pain will find you. Always does.” Viggo nodded, wishing that the young man were wrong.
“Well, I won’t go looking for it, anyway. But what about the two of you? Would you consent to being interviewed, perhaps? Doesn’t have to be formal or anything, just a mini-recorder and some simple questions…”
“You want our life stories?” Billy asked. Second time.
“Yeah, well, I mean…”
“It won’t be quick. It won’t be simple. Are you still in?” Billy was staring, but Viggo couldn’t turn away this time. He drew in a deep breath, nodded slowly.
“Let’s do it.”
“I was born in Glasgow,” Billy began, feet in Dominic’s lap on a well-worn sofa, his eyes closed, but still managing to appear guarded as Dominic rubbed slow circles int his ankles. “1968. I have a sister, Margaret. No brothers. I came to Ireland in 1990.” He paused, looked up, focused on Viggo. “You want anything before that, you’re not going to get it,” he warned, and Viggo just nodded. No sense pressing this early on, not with someone so cautious. Billy nodded back, satisfied, and closed his eyes again, settling back again the armrest and stretching his legs further into Dominic’s hands. “Right then. 1990, I arrived in Donegal. My parents were dead, sister married, and I had little reason to stay in Scotland. I wasn’t exactly poor, but I didn’t have a lot. I worked at a pub for a while, and a man I worked with taught me to drum in my spare time. I was shite for it at first, but I learn quickly. Me mum taught me to sing when I was just a wee ‘un, and it didn’t take long for me to pick up some of the songs the blokes would sing after getting a bit pissed… I knew some tunes in Scots Gaelic, and Irish isn’t so different, so… Well anyway, I met Dominic in ’99. I was down in Galway by then, after a brief stint in Connemara with…. well, it didn’t work out. Anyhow, in Galway, I met Dom. He was a bit crazy, I could see that even then, but when he got to playing that thing…” Billy paused again, but this time when his eyes opened he didn’t even see Viggo, and the two men shared a secret smile. “…it was fantastic. Everyone loved him around town, you know, and he wasn’t even a Paddy.”
“Clearly,” Dom interrupted, but Billy just snorted and returned to his story.
“We shared a cheese and onion pasty one night after closing at the pub I was working at the time, and…”
“One thing led to another, you might say,” Dom finished with a wink. Billy grunted, but didn’t deny it.
“Right, well. We shared a room over the pub for two months, maybe, but we were… well let’s just say some blokes in town weren’t too keen on having a Scot working their favourite spot, and once they had another reason on their hands…” Viggo noticed that Dominic, too, closed his eyes at this point in the story, and his fingers seemed to tighten almost imperceptibly on Billy’s foot. “He was in a bad way, Dommeh was. I guess he looked like the weaker one, and well, I wouldn’t deny it…” Dominic rolled his eyes but didn’t contradict, and Viggo smiled. “Point is, they went after him, cornered him alone, and he was in a mighty bad way. And then, of course, they had me to reckon with.” Billy’s eyes were open again, and Viggo himself was almost frightened by the protective gleam, not lessened by time or memory. “The owner of the pub liked me, but after what I did to those boys, he couldn’t keep me. There would be talk, and if I wanted to keep my working papers, I had to get the hell out of there. So Dominic and I headed south, and after a little time in Killarney we ended up here.” Billy shrugged, as if to conclude the story.
“So what about jobs? Do you just busk, or do you do other things?” Viggo asked.
“Oh, we work,” Dom clarified. “Billy works at An Brog now, down on Oliver Plunkett street, and I mix cocktails at the Long Island. Plenty of love for the fairy boys down at that place, at least from the women,” he clarified with a slight smirk. “Anyway, we just started doing this for fun, and it’s a bit of money. Not the interesting sob story you were hoping for mate, I’m afraid.”
“No… no it’s fine, I… what about you, Dominic? I mean, how did you get here?” Viggo asked, angling the mic slightly to pick up Dominic’s voice.
“Oh well… my story’s not so interesting, I mean… I grew up in Germany, all over the fucking place, and when I was a teenager my parents moved us back. No siblings, just me, and when I got done with my schooling in Manchester I was too stoned to do uni, really. Too stoned to do much of anything, and they were sick of me. So I came to Ireland, you know, got some brains. Worked in Dublin for a long time, learned how to make fancy drinks and make people happy. Would’ve stayed, but I went to Galway with some mates for a change of scenery one summer and that’s where I found this one.” Billy smiled a rare genuine smile as Dominic squeezed his knee.
“And what about… the accident? I mean…”
“Okay first off mate, it was no fucking accident,” Dominic replied in a steelier tone than Viggo had yet heard from him. Viggo nodded.
“Sorry, I…”
“It’s just, not an accident. And as for me, I recovered. Bills took care of me, you know?” A fond smile. “I was bloodied up, a couple of cracked ribs, but none too worse for the wear. Scared me, of course, but I just learned to be a little more cautious. Can’t get all over him in public anymore, but then I never really could, I guess. Illusion or safety, or maybe I had a guardian angel somewhere…”
“You like the nasty stuff, don’t you?” Billy interrupted, his eyes focused on Viggo with a look of cool, determined anger. Not the type you’d like to meet in a darkened alley after you’d beaten up his boyfriend, indeed. “Sensationalist journalism, right? You invite yourself into our homes and then tell our sad fecking stories…”
“Bills…”
“No Dom. Let me finish. I think this man has some explaining to do. Why the fuck do you want to know these things, can you tell me that? Because I don’t understand why someone would get such a bloody kick out of another man’s pain… you don’t get it, do you? I watched my boyfriend lying in a fucking pool of blood, and I bet you’re grinning inside because it’ll make such a nice tragic ‘human angle’…”
“Billy, remember…”
“No, Dommeh! I think this man has some explaining to do, after you so kindly let him into our home.” Billy’s eyes were shooting daggers, and a lesser man would have been terrified, but Viggo stood his ground. This was it, this emotion… this was real. So, levelling his eyes with Billy’s, Viggo did something he hadn’t done in quite a long time. He told the truth.
“My lover died in Kosovo,” Viggo admitted, his tone calm and level as Dom gasped audibly. “The shelling was bad, really fucking bad, but that was Dave… always had to get the story, you know? He wanted people to see, the real pain that these people were facing everyday, the looks in the mothers’ eyes. He always had hoped for change, for a sense of social responsibility to kick these governments in the arse and make people realize… he wanted to be a lawyer, originally. Wanted to work for the UN or Amnesty International, but he decided to take pictures instead, thought the visual impact would make more of a difference than the law ever could. Still, if he had been a lawyer… well, if Dave had been a lawyer, I wouldn’t be sitting here beside you today.”
There was a pregnant silence, as Billy continued to stare, almost sizing Viggo up, and then Dominic reached out, and squeezed his hand, and the moment was past. “Did you see him?” Dominic whispered. “Before…”
“Yes. I was on assignment not far away, in Poland. Walesa had just been elected, but there were still Soviet troops, and I was doing a story… well in any event, I was able to get a jet in the moment I heard. He was in a military hospital there… the war hadn’t started yet, officially, but there was street violence everywhere, ethnic spats against the Albanians, and… it was brutal. I’ve watched people die, more times than I care to count, but I couldn’t handle that. I saw his body, still alive but ripped to shreds like that, barely recognizable. He… he opened his mouth, and he could still talk, but barely. He just whispered it, you know, the last ‘I love you,’ and I couldn’t take it… I didn’t want to believe. I walked out of that tent, sure that it was just a big fucking nightmare, and when I turned around and came back, he was dead.”
“Jesus,” Billy uttered, and this time the only undertone was respect.
“Yeah. Well, you know, I threw myself into my work. The next five years I did some of my best work, really dangerous stuff sometimes, or emotionally dangerous, at least. I was paid well, and my editors were happy, but I might as well have been dead. I had checked out, and I think the only reason I could handle some of it was that I was emotionally numb. I didn’t mind danger because I knew, in my heart, that I deserved to die. I hoped that I would see Dave, you know, after… but I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t so sure we would wind up in the same place, but I was well on my way to finding out. Anyway, before anything too dramatic could happen, I had this interview. Guy killed three men and a teenaged boy… his teenaged son. During the trial he was given the chance to tell his story, and I was picked for the job. I didn’t know all the details, but when I found out… well basically, this guy was a Neo-Nazi. He was extremely right wing, white supremacist, all that shit, but when he found out his son was queer he went insane. Murdered him, his lover, and two friends. Brutally raped, beat, and then murdered. I mean I’m talking to this man, who is telling me, completely straight-faced, how he raped his seventeen-year old son, and how the boy deserved it, and I just lost it. I hadn’t gotten mad in five years, not at all, but I snapped. I decked the guy, and was hauled out of there, fists still flying, and they never put me on the tough stories again.” Viggo paused, and the room was full with the silence. No one spoke for a moment, until he smiled and shrugged his shoulders, dismissing the case. “Well, I guess you didn’t ask for my story, exactly. I’ll be going now…”
“Wait.” Billy held a hand out, beckoning. “Stay.”
“I…”
“What I said… well, don’t worry about it. I assumed, and I had no right. You never can be too careful, but... please. You staying in a hotel, Viggo?” A nod. “Then you go get a good night’s rest, but come back tomorrow. We’ll meet for brunch; say ten at that same café? We might be able to give you some ideas of who to interview, and you can take more photographs if you like.”
Viggo nodded, and put his recorder away, rising to his feet. “That sounds fine to me. Thank you, both of you, for being honest,” he added with a slight smile. “So I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”
“Yeah. Tomorrow.” Billy nodded, but Dominic just stepped forward and pulled Viggo into a wordless hug. Viggo left the room without saying another word.
“Jesus, Billy! Did you have to go all psycho on him? Way to go! I mean all we have to do is keep him in town, and…”
“Dominic! Need I remind you of your own quite emotional reaction? It’s a touching story, yes, but you’re making a mistake, Dommeh. You care about him.”
Dominic glared at Billy, refusing to back down, and he knew that he was the only one who could really stand up to Billy like that and make an impact on the man. “This isn’t about me, Billy. You started caring before he ever opened his mouth.”
Billy sighed, and turned, and fastened the deadbolt before heading to the bedroom. Dominic was right. Always was.
no subject
oh fuck! what a cool twist! never saw that one coming. (and i'm usually really good at figuring that sort of thing out)
ok. this has such a wonderful beginning. i'm so glad to see that you've already finished writing the complete story. seems there been more then a few stories out in LJ land, started but then never followed up on, and i would hate not knowing how this one ends! :grin:
i love that we'll have to pay closer attention to more then just what's being said. (and i love protective billy/dom)
can't wait for more!
kerry =)
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject