Drabbletastic

[springfall-kg.livejournal.com]

I posted this on Viggorli a really long time ago, but I was just re-reading it and I realized how much I like it, and I had to put it on here, too. Hope no one minds too much :)

Inspired by the Foo Fighters' song of the same name





Title: Six Colored Pictures of a Marigold
Author:springfall_kg
Pairing: Viggorli
Rating: G- pure schmoop
Feedback: Like breathing
Archiving: Would be an honor
NOTE: It is because of dmbdragonfly that this got posted originally and it's because of her praise of my random little filks and her insatiable lust for anything Viggorli that made me like it so much. Yay :)

Orlando was late. Viggo sighed- typical, he wasn’t so surprised. Disappointed, yes. But not surprised. He had known Orlando far too long to ever be surprised. And he liked it, he realized; it was nice, knowing someone so long that there were no surprises.

Not to say that there weren’t problems- because there were, of course, problems like clockwork, like everyone else. Everyone had them, normal, it made them normal. Of course, Viggo realized, checking his watch for the fiftieth time that minute, he and Orlando were no more normal than they were surprising. Which is to say, not at all. But who’s to say what normal is, really? Viggo certainly couldn’t.

It had started in New Zealand- didn’t everything always start in New Zealand? Look at Dom and Elijah; look at their careers- because the careers really did start in New Zealand. It was a climax of beginnings. Viggo and Orlando had been nervous around each other. Not outwardly, no, because they couldn’t be- but, inside, Viggo would scream every time Orlando looked at him, fervently hoping he wasn’t too old-looking in that moment. There were moments, in those first few weeks- weeks where Viggo had felt awkward as hell, being new and being older- where Viggo had felt heat rise in his cheeks, and had to turn away to keep his flush from showing. And though Orlando had the benefit of being tan, his eyes betrayed his stand on things quicker than anyone else Viggo had ever met- including Elijah and his ‘heartbreakers’, as Dom called them. They were charming, yes, in an innocent and childish way. But heartbreakers? Nothing about Elijah was heartbreaking. He was just a friendly, slightly distracted kid.

Orlando was a heartbreaker. There was no doubt in Viggo’s mind that Orlando was everything that a heart could be broken over. He was tremulously beautiful, dark skinned and haired and eyed but light, light in smile and in spirit and in laughter. His accent was warm just like his hands and his legs were long with a confidence begging to be let loose. Even his fingertips spoke of roads untravelled and a curiosity that would not be quelled by years or defeats. Elijah was something, but Orlando- Orlando was a vision.

Viggo had never been able to capture Orlando in paint. He had tried. He had never been able to sculpt him- for Orlando could not sit still. He had barely been able to put his feelings into poetry for the tall, lazy-smiling man. Viggo glared at his watch, furious with the minute hand for moving nowhere slowly. Frustrated in more ways than one, his eyes flicked to the mantle.

Perhaps here was the best representation of what Orlando was. Six pictures, standing vertical in cheap, clear plastic frames, were spaced equally out across the dark wood. Orlando with a potted marigold he had gotten from Liv for his birthday. Viggo’s eyes moved across the set of faces and grins and secrets deeper.

The first, Orlando with a genuinely surprised, happy look on his gentle face. The plant was cupped, terra-cotta embraced by golden palms, rough from weapons and reigns of bridles. His eyes- so like a horse’s that Viggo was startled sometimes when he looked at T.J or Uraeus hard for a moment, forgetting where he was. Orlando’s teeth were white and accidentally bared, eyeteeth uncovered by lips. It was the same kind of veil that fell away when Viggo first cupped his chin in his hand and kissed him, the same surprise and genuine joy. It made Viggo smile despite himself, and he moved to the next picture without consulting his watch.

This was a grinning Orlando, feral and feline, clutching at his potted marigold, crooked smile glowing like the orangey flower he held. Viggo moved through the rest of the photos- a secret smile, a unfocused gaze, a head-thrown-back laugh, a stuck-out tongue, an offering of a single flower to the viewer. Viggo thought, ‘I love him,’ and his heart broke beautiful.

The door opened, and Orlando stepped in, shaking water from dark hair. “The roads were flooded,” he supplied, and suddenly Viggo realized that time needed to stay slow, slow. He held his arms out to Orlando, six colored pictures of a marigold all in a row like blessings.

And when Orlando came to him, Viggo realized his watch had stopped.