title: la espuma humana
author: annie oates
fandom: lotr|rps
pairing: mild viggo mortensen/orlando bloom ambiguity.
rating: g
archive: ask.
disclaimers: not real. not mine. deny everything.
warnings: rps, gen
summery: viggo's wallowing. again.
feedback: always welcome.



Why am I so self-involved? Why am I so hurt? Why do I need validation? Where does this pain come from? Why am I so ashamed?

Time is without consequence. There is nothing here but the sound of my own voice. I don't know how to care. Every now and again, I get a flash of feeling. I rush to capture it on canvas, on film, in words. But it always leaves and I am alone. I'm in a room with a dozen people, and I feel they' re on top of me. They look at me and I exist in the planes of their faces. Brilliant lack of color. Gilded.

There is no beauty.

I am wrong.

This is not my space. I'm feet and elbows, no room for me. I can't breathe, squeezed in here.

I ask myself, "What mercy is this?"

Are my obligations really that enriched by my presence? There's nothing distinguishing about me.

I am not original.

I am not unique.

I am not more.

There is no need for me here. If I go quickly, my place will be filled.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

I question, "Then why hasn't the one in me been filled?"

-x-x-

"Strider's wallowing, again." One of the Hobbits remarks, bringing me back.

"You leave Mr. Strider alone, Pip. He's been nothin' but good to us." Sam states using Astin's mouth.

Billy's eyes twinkle knowingly, the spirit of Pippin infusing the curves of his face. Neither hobbit nor Scot has ever been one to let the silence lie alone.

Transparent touch on my neck shifts my focus back to the corporeal realm. Soft hands followed by a throaty whisper in my ear.

"Human scum." Vaguely threatening, I think.

"Elf." I respond.

The fingers tighten momentarily. He's always hated being reduced to the role. Sometimes I suspect he feels powerless against the Prince. It can't be easy, carrying something so otherworldly. Not for someone like Orlando. Someone who's had a vision of the end and been drawn back. He hides his self-destruction beneath the label of Adventure. Does he even know how much he wants to return?

Sometimes when our numbers are open only to the Fellowship, he contorts in the most amazing of ways. Bending and flexing, his movements are so casually familiar. The shock of bending bones should be jarring, but isn't. It is expected of his kind. And under the cover of the character he takes a moment to slip his hand beneath his shirt, hovering over his back, allowing his fingers to trace the scars. Perhaps as a reminder to him that it's only flesh. Only flesh that lays between him and the Return.

Or maybe he has an itch.

The Took's right. I'm wallowing.

end.