5/5 (Joyous Love seemed to me...)
Disclaimer: I do not know Elijah Wood or Viggo Mortensen in any way, shape or form. I cannot know Doctor Hannibal Lecter as he does not, as far as I am aware, exist outside of the imagination of the great Thomas Harris.
Summary: Elijah runs from the wolves. Doctor Lecter is waiting.
Pairing: EW/VM Rating: This Chapter is PG15. Warnings: Slightly AU. Violence. Dark Themes.
Feedback: Yes please
AN: This just cried out to me: be assured this is meant to be rather tongue in cheek and camp, not a horror fest, though there is danger and an underlying exploration of relationships and the media. Thank you. Setting: Late autumn in the run up to "The Return of the King" and immediately before the events of "Hannibal", which I have tampered with to suit my purposes, because that is how I am. Please see Part 1 for full notes. In this chapter and the following, final one, liberties are taken with regard to certain medical facts. Please allow me this poetic licence. Thank you.
The chapter headings are quotations from Dante.
5/5 (Joyous Love seemed to me...)
"Is it true...?" *Flash*
*Flash* *Flash* "Did you and Frodo-?" *Flash*
"Are you queer?" *Flash*
He considers connecting his fist with the nearest snout, but that hadn't solved anything earlier in the day, had it? All he wants is to get the name of a good detective, someone to do some legwork and find Elijah.
Yapping and howling, the dogs are forced back by hotel security and Viggo is able to make his way to his room. There are at least twenty message slips waiting for him, mostly from his management in the States. Three are from Debbie, Elijah's mother. Viggo cringes. Before they left on their trip he had promised Debbie that he would take care of Elijah. And she had kissed him, wished him well, believed in him. Now he doesn't even believe in him anymore.
Viggo gets on the phone to his manager and barks orders.
"Get the best. Money, as they say, no object. Get the best. Now. No! Not in the morning, not even in an hour from now, but NOW!"
In the States, the money man is wheedling, trying to persuade his star client that he should just get on the next available flight. "Its not too late, Viggo. Sure, I can find you a detective, of course we all want to find Elijah safe and well. But, you don't have to be there when he turns up. Give yourself some space, think it through. I mean, Viggo, we are both men of the world here. You had his ass, its not like you two were really married, for Christ's sake... Viggo? Viggo?"
Viggo stares at the phone for a second and then throws it across the room. Things are going to change when this is all over, starting with the people who work for him. But his immediate concern is Elijah.
He starts when he hears the rap at the door. Elijah! But he would hardly need to knock, he has a cardkey. Even so, his heart is thumping as he opens it.
The man is unknown to him, Italian, a policeman in plain clothes. He flashes his ID at the big American movie star and Viggo automatically moves aside to let him in.
Viggo is cold. He waits for the news.
"Signor Mortensen. I have been in touch with Signora Wood in the United States of America." The policeman's English is good. Viggo notices how weary this man looks, dissolute almost, in his crumpled linen suit.
'He is dead,' thinks Viggo. 'He was run down by a drunk driver. He threw himself from a tall building. If I hear the words in my head, they won't really be said...'
"Signora Wood gave me her permission to talk to you as her representative in Florence. Signor Mortensen, I have to tell you that we have found Signor Elijah Wood..." The policeman sighs. Viggo wants to shake him, smash him into the wall for dragging this out.
(Shall I take your name, Viggo? Shall I be Elijah Mortensen? Or are you going to be Viggo Wood? He giggled as he spoke, his mouth nuzzling Viggo's neck.. But he was semi-serious, too, so intense...)
"He is in the infirmary. Signor Wood appears to be in a coma.."
Appears. Appears to be. Present tense.
In a coma.
"Where did you find him?" Viggo asks, his voice hoarse. The policeman is looking about the palatial hotel suite and Viggo recognises avarice when he sees it. But this man has brought him news that Elijah is alive. Unconscious, but alive.
"He was found, let me see..." The policeman flips open a leather-bound notebook and consults it with a distressing lack of urgency. "…in a cemetery, the Cimitero delle Porte Sante. He was lying in the arms of a -stone angel. He appears to be physically undamaged but he does have marks on his wrists as if he was bound, possibly by leather straps..."
The policeman closes his book and looks expectantly at Viggo.
Bound by leather straps?
"But he is alive. He will recover? I must go to him." Viggo is snatching up his jacket, looking around for his cardkey.
"We will need to ask you some questions, Signor Mortensen. In the meantime, I can drive you to see your - friend, Signor Wood."
Viggo looks Chief Investigator Pazzi in the eye and answers coldly.
"Elijah is not my friend. He is my lover. We were recently married."
Dr. Lecter has a big day tomorrow. He must attend a meeting of the Board of the Cappone Library. He whistles as he walks. It is a fine evening in late fall. In the distance he can hear the wail of a dozen police cars and he is fully aware of where they are converging.
As he had carried the negligible weight in his arms to the cemetery, Lecter's thoughts had already moved on several steps along the way. To Virginia. To Clarice.
The snowy faced boy had been welcomed into the arms of the angel, deposited with infinite care into the embrace of eternally cold stone. For an instant Lecter had allowed his hand to caress the sleeper, to imprint the memory of the skin and bone into his memory banks. The Doctor is able to summon such recollections at will and unwrap them for juicy dissection in times of boredom, his greatest foe. He had felt Elijah's heart beating steadily beneath his hand and smiled. Once satisfied with the placement of the limbs, he had withdrawn, gracefully as ever, after first pausing to read an inscription on a particularly fine tomb. There is always time to appreciate beauty in all its many forms.
The call to the public official with responsibility for cemeteries and antiquities had been made. The young man would be found before the cold night air could do him too much damage. Dehydration would set in rather quickly and Lecter had no desire to see Elijah Wood's name in the obituary column just yet. Not when he was such an interesting case.
Dr. Lecter knows his drugs, knows his dosages. Elijah Wood will awaken like Snow White from a deep and refreshing sleep in approximately forty-eight hours. He will be disorientated and his short-term memory will be affected, perhaps for another day. Doctor Hannibal Lecter has already made his plans. The opera and then...
...there is an affirmation of love to be made. And it isn't here in Florence.
For two days Viggo has kept vigil. Elijah has been attended by the best doctors in Italy. A posse of security surrounds the little hospital where he makes his slow recovery, the paparazzi kept well away. The mystery of what happened to Elijah Wood threatens to overshadow the premiere of 'The Return of the King.'
Flowers are jammed into every conceivable space in the hospital room. They bear cards from family and friends, from movie people, from the owners of websites, from fans. Elijah's mother had flown in yesterday and has only just been persuaded to go rest. She was curt with Viggo and he didn't blame her. He will have to work on mending fences where that lady is concerned.
Earlier in the day he had spoken with Dominic for the first time since the break-up with Elijah. The younger man had cried when Viggo had told him the details, scant though they were.
"But he hadn't, he hadn't been-?" Dominic had finally asked the question.
"No. We can take some comfort in that. He was drugged but not apparently molested. At least-" he paused, wondering how much he could divulge without Dominic jumping on the next plane.
"Yes? What is it, Viggo? Tell me." The voice was almost a whisper at the end of the line, an ocean away.
"We will know more when he comes round, we really don't know at this stage what happened to him. The doctors are hopeful he will make a full recovery."
Viggo had tried to sound optimistic. In truth, the thought of Elijah being in the hands of some maniac made him want to punch a hole in the wall. And there was something else, something he thought it best Dominic not know, not yet.
"Viggo," Dominic said, his voice breaking, "look after him now. I mean, really take care of him. I would, if he wanted me."
He had assured him, of course, and by the time they hung up they had reached a sort of understanding where Elijah is concerned. Viggo will let Dominic back into their lives and Dominic will accept that Elijah is most definitely now with Viggo.
Now it is evening. Another night has fallen and Viggo is weary. He stretches out in the big armchair by the bed. Elijah's mother will return in an hour and he has promised to go get some sleep then, allow her the time alone with her son.
"Viggo?" The voice is so soft, almost inaudible.
He opens his eyes and looks at Elijah. Reaching out, he covers the small hand with his own large one and cannot find words.
"Cat got your tongue? You look tired," says Elijah, and promptly yawns.
"Elijah. I thought you were gone. I thought you had left me for good. Then when you were found, I was so afraid..."
"We were in Venice. We were happy..." Elijah is confused.
Viggo moves from the chair to rest on the bed. He leans down to kiss Elijah's forehead, softly.
"I don't really understand. Why am I here? Did I have an accident?" Elijah asks, trying to sit up. He notices the tubes and hears the quiet hum of the hospital for the first time. The doctors had warned Viggo that there might be side effects.
"Hush. We can talk about it later. Just remember Venice. Our day." Viggo takes Elijah very gently into his arms. Nursing staff arrive and carefully disentangle the lovers so they can check Elijah's stats. Then his mother is brought in, dishevelled but desperately relieved. Viggo withdraws and allows them some privacy.
He wanders the corridors of the hospital, unmolested and unreachable. He thinks of many things. Elijah's eyes, the warmth of his skin.
He thinks of yesterday and the police in the hospital room, taking samples from Elijah's unconscious body, and photographs. Photographs of Elijah. Of his chest.
It had looked like a tattoo. It was not. Simply a carefully applied rendering in red ink on pale skin. Of blood red dashes in the universal heart shape. A template for a cut-out, anatomically in alignment with Elijah's heart.
It is some time later.
They lie quietly together, Elijah tucked inside, and Viggo on top of, the hospital bed. In the corner of the room, the muted TV is flashing a news item. Scores of police cars can be seen screeching into the Palazzo Vecchio and tourists are crying. Viggo is barely interested. Apparently, a murder has been committed here in Florence, a body swinging gruesomely from a window, bloody and despoiled. He grimaces and turns off the TV. The last thing he wants is for this to upset Elijah.
"Elijah," Viggo begins the hardest thing he will ever have to say, "there is something you should know. When we left the hotel together we were besieged by reporters. They had found out about our wedding, Elijah. They asked us whether it was true. And, Elijah, you told them straight out - yes, it was true! You were defiant and proud, just like I told you to be when we talked it over. But, Elijah, when they asked me the same question-"
He is silenced by a finger on his lips.
"I know. I started to remember a few minutes ago, it's starting to come back."
"I am so sorry-" Viggo begins.
"Viggo, you were scared. Everyone has a right to be afraid, sometimes, even you," Elijah says. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind he remembers red eyes and his heart skips a beat. But the image disappears quickly and there is only Viggo, beautiful and beseeching.
"But I had no business being afraid! After everything I said..."
"I don't know where I got my strength from, but I can guess. I got it from you. Now let me give you some back. Let me look after you," whispers Elijah, and his words are clarified by his actions. Pulling the bigger man into an embrace, finding his mouth and confirming his love.
Elijah's mother, about to enter the room, hears the words and quietly walks away. Her son is back. All's right with the world.
Epilogue:
Walking through the airport terminal, confident in his disguise, he blocks off the smells of the herd and concentrates on his objectives. The newsstands are full of celebrity stories and gossip but none are the concern of Hannibal Lecter.
He is back on US soil. Not the home of his birth, but the home of his re-birth perhaps, and the only place on earth to find what he now seeks.
Clarice.
And a leap of faith.
The End