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vamp_ressTitle: The Gift
Author: Michelle
Email: michelle [at] waking-vision.com
Summary: Control is what Viggo desires most. It’s also what he usually doesn’t have.
Series: Library-AU
Pairing: Viggo/Orlando
Genre: slash
Warnings: AU, medical condition, epilepsy
Rating: General Audience
Disclaimer: Viggo and Orlando belong to themselves. It’s only in my deranged mind that they belong to each other.
Author’s Note: Written for the Year of the OTP challenge. For August I chose the prompt “You’re thinking too much”. Once again, this is Viggo’s POV. So be prepared for some complicated feelingsTM.
~*~
Viggo likes physics. He likes the logic of it, the predictability. It’s like flying a plane. All he has to do is consider all variables: wind, fuel, loading. He puts them in an equation and the equation will yield a result. He can trust the result.
He controls the result, because he controls the equation. The predictability and safety of it are a comfort.
This is how he’s lived his life: He’s controlled the equation, because he’s learnt that this is what people expect of him. His mother praised him for being self-assured and independent when he was fifteen. His employer praised him for keeping a level head in a tight spot (and gave him a raise, too). And Josh readily left the decision-making to him. Viggo was always better at giving orders than following them, anyway.
It’s a rough awakening when he learns that he’s not able to control the equation anymore. It throws him off-balance in the most painful way imaginable. The equation of his body suddenly becomes a lot more complicated. What has always been nothing more than food, drink, sleep, sex now gains multiple invisible variables he doesn’t know and can’t control.
And what has been second nature to him – being independent, being his own man, being in control of a situation – isn’t at all what is required now. No one wants him to be independent anymore. Because they already know what takes him weeks to realize: He’s not calling the shots. He’s not independent, not level-headed. He’s not in control.
As his calendar fills up with doctors’ appointments and hospital stays he realizes that he’s nothing but a little screw in a big machine now. He’s expected to do his duty: Be on time, be docile and polite, take his pills, don’t complain. But he’s not expected to know what the big machine actually does.
No one has an answer to that question and no one wants him to ask. They want him to be silent, they want him to comply. They want him to follow orders and he’s always been bad at that.
The want him to be thankful: Thankful for their help. Thankful for the colorful chemicals he has to put into his body now. Thankful for their guidance. They want him to be thankful for the fact that they’ve taken over his life, that they make every decision for him. He hates it, hates every minute of it.
It breaks him. Losing that part of himself breaks him even more than the epilepsy does. The epilepsy makes him lose the equation of his body. And everything else that comes with it makes him lose the equation of his life.
He can accept neither. He won’t back down, won’t bend the knee. Never, not even for your own good, as everyone keeps telling him. So he rebels. Breaks out in the only way he knows how: by taking back control. It’s an act of violence. He leaves carnage behind, burnt bridges than can’t ever be rebuilt. He turns around his life in a drastic fashion. He leaves, runs, flees as fast and as far as he can manage and tries to rebuild himself. A version of himself, at least. A version of himself he can live with.
He spends years narrowing down the equation, takes out as many variables as he can. He takes out things he took for granted. He removes places from the equation. He removes people and it feels like cutting off his hand finger by finger. It hurts to not have them. But he knows: Knows that it would hurt even more to have them in his life. To see his own failure reflect in their eyes.
That still leaves the invisible variables, the ones he can’t influence. They will still yield surprising results, but at least he’s the only one seeing them now. He’s the only one suffering for it. That’s his consolation. He’s nobody’s burden but his own.
He can live his life like that, he’s sure of that. He can cut his losses, go forward. He may have nothing but himself, but it’s enough.
That is, until Orlando.
Orlando, who wants with all his might to be a part of Viggo’s equation. It threatens the little control Viggo has over his life, because Orlando turns out to be the biggest variable of them all. It scares Viggo. He’s narrowed down his life to the point where an open door and a breath of fresh air make him dizzy with fright. (Anticipation, too. Not that he can admit to that, but still.) Because if he can’t control the equation, he can’t control the result. And with that he’s back at the beginning, right where he started years ago: a pinball being pushed in all kinds of different directions without any say in the matter.
He doesn’t want to go back there. He can’t. He’ll lose himself there, he’ll lose the last bit that’s still himself.
At least that is what he thinks will happen. According to everything he knows it should be what happens.
However, Orlando is there to prove that Viggo’s perception of physics has been wrong from the start. He’s there to teach Viggo that it’s okay to not know the result beforehand. He shows him that it’s okay to stray from the path. Orlando convinces Viggo that it’s the equation that counts. It doesn’t have to be perfect to still be beautiful. And if the result is faulty, you simply start over. Start from the beginning, make a new attempt.
It’s the journey, not the destination. It’s the process, not the goal.
Orlando tells Viggo that surprise results aren’t necessarily a bad thing. He says that fear isn’t something Viggo needs to shy away from. It’s just a feeling, just a bodily reaction. He says that failure is a fact of life. It’s something every human being has to deal with. Failing just means being alive. And doesn’t Viggo want to be alive?
Difficult question, for a while.
Orlando teaches Viggo the greatest lesson of them all, a lesson not even the epilepsy was able to teach him: How to let go. Let go of his control, his understanding of logic and physics and what he expects of life. Yes, his brain tried to teach him this lesson, but he resisted with everything he had. That resistance took up all his strength, he realizes that now. The fight tired him out, sucked up his energy. His joy. He’s told himself it’s worth it. He’s told himself that this fight is what gives him self-worth, independence, sense of self. But is it, truly?
He’s resisted for so long, but when Orlando tempts, there is no resisting. There is only Viggo trying unsuccessfully to stay in control until he yields anyway in the end. It’s inevitable. He knows from the beginning that he’ll lose this fight. What he doesn’t know beforehand is that losing will lead to victory, happiness, joy. It will lead to love, acceptance, trust.
It won’t lead to control. But it will lead to so many other things that are better, much better. Bigger.
He’s in his forties when Orlando teaches him this lesson: That he will still be loved even when he’s not the one calling the shots. That he’s still Orlando’s number one even when he’s not independent and self-assured. That Orlando will still love him, even when Viggo is all doubt and resentment, grief and loss. Because somehow, Orlando can take all that and turn it into something beautiful. He shines his love into Viggo and Viggo feels it vibrate in his soul. Orlando gives, Viggo can’t help but give back. It’s a feeling he hasn’t had in years. He hadn’t known he even had anything to give. He’s grateful, overwhelmed by the beauty of it. The enormity of it. The gift.
With Orlando, he’s not expected to be in control. It’s not an easy lesson to learn, but Orlando turns out to be a patient teacher and whenever Viggo pushes back, lashing out because he’s frightened, Orlando just keeps giving. He keeps inviting him. Keeps tempting.
“You’re thinking too much,” Orlando says, frequently. What he means is: Viggo, you’re overthinking things. You’re seeing problems when there are none. You’re making up an equation in a situation where physics don’t apply. You’re standing in your own way.
And then Orlando promptly teaches Viggo another lesson: The lesson that he won’t be taken advantage of, even if he’s not in control. There is something in between the two polar-opposites – being the one who’s in control and being the one who’s not. The space in between is made of love and trust. It’s as wide and as deep as he wants it to be, as he needs it to be. It’s the space where he can rest. It’s the space where he doesn’t have to think. It’s the space where he is accepted, no strings attached.
Nothing in his life has ever felt like this. It’s safe, comforting. It’s peaceful. Restful. It’s his.
It’s the space where nothing is expected of him, where nothing will ever be held against him. It’s the space where he can leave his fears and worries, the seizures and the headaches, the anger and the grief. He can leave all of that in this space and Orlando will guard it faithfully. He shows what Viggo has known from the beginning: That Orlando is the biggest variable in Viggo’s equation and that he can tip the result in any direction.
Viggo is not in control of the result and for the first time in his adult life this is no cause for panic. No cause for a fight-or-flight reaction. All Viggo feels now is peace. Viggo simply trusts.
He can live with any result, as long as Orlando is part of the equation.
- The End
(August 2025)
(no subject)
21/8/25 18:51 (UTC)(no subject)
23/8/25 17:42 (UTC)