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Flying With Eagles	By : Zar Category: Individual Celebrities > Orlando Bloom Views: 10191 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not know Orlando Bloom. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Title: Flying with Eagles
Author: Zar
Email: zarakan@hotmail.com
LJ: http://www.livejournal.com/users/squishypiglet/
Warnings: This is slash. Don't like it? Don't read it!
Pairings: Viggorli with special guest Eric Bana.
Disclaimer: This is not true, despite all my wishes.
Summary: Food, friends and family...

So sorry this took forever, you guys! But as you all know, it was my birthday just over a week ago, and like Viggo...I get severe depression. And then the whole hype about me losing everything on my computer...(full report on melodrama on my LJ)

Anyway, sorry to :o)halo since this is late in coming!! I promised to get it out on the day she asked, but I went insane since this interlude was so damn hard to write! It felt...oddly enough, a little too personal and over emotional.

Read first, but don't judge too harshly, I almost didn't post this up. Feels wrong somehow...

Interlude - Birthdays

I hate birthdays.

Everyone has been through that phase – you know which one, the one when you would have given anything to lose the rabbit teeth and suddenly grow into your strange and gawky new body. When you wished you were a grown up – older and wiser. Remember those frustrating days when you were the youngest in high school and everyone towered above you? How you wished you were older; how cool those ‘adults’ were with their superior ‘senior year only’ lockers. I grew up in the 60s – 70s and surprisingly, it’s not all that different today, judging from what I’ve seen at Henry’s high school. The adolescent girls are still spending all their time touching up inch thick make up to appear older than they are…but all for what?

And how ironic is it that older women (and men) are spending everything within their power to appear younger? Pouring all their time and money…liposuction, exercise, botox, diets, hormone pills, skin bleaching…to try and re-attain the health and vibrancy the young take for granted.

I am old now. There’s no denying it. Forty-six this year. Four short years until I hit half a century, practically an antique. And what have I done with my time? My senior by three years, Bill Gates has just hit one trillion dollars and has propelled the richest man in the world even further than anything I could dream of achieving. Shirley Temple, the most successful child star in the history of film hit the jackpot by six years old, and earned herself an Oscar at seven. What have I done to prove myself at forty-six? Fine, you might say that those are the exceptions – not everyone can fly as high as these incredibly overachievers, ‘a small percentage’ you shout. Then what would you say about Beanie? We’re roughly the same age, spent a lot of our teenage years together…yet he’s by far the more experienced, knowledgeable and suave man.

And me?

Nothing.

No one special, just one of the crowd.

I hate birthdays.

I can’t remember what first birthday was like, though I have vague recollections of my third. Just my parents and older brother…Rune wasn’t born yet. Slightly similar to the dinner Vanessa and Johnny organised to celebrate Jack’s third birthday. Cakes, jelly and cartoons. Can’t remember the presents…but I’ll never forget the laughter, kisses and numerous hugs.

The last birthday I enjoyed was when I was six. At that age, you’re friends with everyone and everybody is your best friend. My mother invited all my classmates back to our ranch and cooked the most amazing home cooked meal while my father and older brother organised outdoor games and competitions designed to entertain hyper six-year olds. The birthday boy won too many of those games to be a coincidence, but at the time, I naively hadn’t noticed their secret grins over my gleeful delight. Food, friends, family…it doesn’t get much better than that.

By my ninth year on earth, my parents were living apart although they were not yet divorced. I wasn’t young, but not quite old enough to understand the significance of it all. Not wanting to believe my father and idolised older brother had deserted us, I selfishly begged my mother to buy me a pony we no longer had the money for. When she teared up and told me we could not afford such luxuries anymore, I threw a temper tantrum and refused to talk or acknowledge her in retaliation.

I got my pony after giving my mother a week of the silent treatment.

It wasn’t until I was much older that I realised why we had variations of toast everyday for three months after my birthday. My mother and younger brother never once complained, but I was too pleased with my new present to even notice or appreciate what they’d done.

Looking back, I hated what I put them through. Hate birthdays.

My 12th birthday was a quiet and understated affair. Rather sombre considering my parents’ divorce was finalised just a few months ago and it hit me for the first time that there truly was no turning back. I was never popular at school – the quiet ones were never heard. I had my few friends, and after much shouting of ‘let me do what I want to do!’ and arguing with my mother, we were allowed to go alone to the little Italian restaurant in our area. The smallest things used to mean so much, and I can still remember feeling so grown up as I pushed open the front door and asked for a table of five. My friends were so impressed with me, especially when it came for time to pay and I carefully counted out the change from the money my mother had given me. I didn’t see her come in and sit down in a shadowed corner. Tiny smile – almost wince – on her face, she watched me enjoy myself with my friends. Though it wasn’t such a pretty sight when Rune let slip that she had tagged along behind. Obviously, she didn’t trust me enough to let me go alone. Didn’t think I was responsible.

I always celebrated my birthday with my friends from then on…13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18…Instead of feeling excited about growing one year older and honouring that day with my family at home, reminiscing and watching crappy movies…it became a whirl of drunken hazes and girls’ mini skirts.

Regret.

21 was the worst. I was finally an adult and my family wasn’t even around to witness it. Giddy with independence, I had immediately moved to Los Angeles. Birthday that year…I can’t remember what even took place, except that a few of the friends I had met went drinking with me. And I woke up with a huge scar on my upper lip and blood all over the place. It was never mentioned to my mother because I knew how upset and worried she would be that I couldn’t take care of myself.

So full of pride.

I hate birthdays.

And I am still unsure of how I got that scar, though I am reminded of it every morning I wake up and stand in front of the bathroom mirror.

My own son though, like all young boys, loved birthdays. He enjoys the attention showered upon him, the cake, the presents, the way he can make me and his mum do absolutely anything on that one day a year. I could never quite understood his eagerness at growing older, how he insisted on sitting in the ‘big people’ chairs and not the high chair, the way he looked forward to me carving a little niche into the doorframe of our kitchen to mark his growth, the thrill on his face when we let him stay up for New Year’s.

I tried to bring him up in rather the same way my mother did with me – planned parties with his entire class when he was younger, and quietly following him and his friends to the Thai restaurant he loves for his 12th. I hadn’t realised how much my mother had planned and considered my feelings with all the preparations, and I couldn’t have been an easy child to cater for.

I had wondered back then, about the odd little smile she had on her face when I insisted year after year that my friends and I could party alone. We didn’t need her tagging along and watching us. Hated that she followed me. Despised her protests. But when I found myself sneaking after Henry…I realised another façade of that smile and what she was feeling.

Wishful. Lonely. Out-grown. Left behind. Unnecessary.

My son is turning twenty-one in January. Though up till now, Exene and I have made some kind of appearance at his birthdays, I could tell he was getting embarrassed and uncomfortable about our continued presence. He’s planning his huge party already…and I feel that same small smile creeping across my face as it did my mother’s years ago. I can almost hear my own voice doing the rejecting.

“…it’s okay, Dad. You don’t have to fly all the way over here. I’ll just go out with my friends. No…no…seriously, just my friends and me would be great. We’re planning on having this party thing…”

21 is truly the most significant one. Entry to adulthood. Legal drinking, though who really abides by that anyway? Birthdays after that big one are just…redundant. Things all sort of blur and October the 20th doesn’t seem so important anymore. Just a regular occurrence that takes place same time every year…and as I let them go by, so did my friends.

It didn’t help either that as I grew older and became better at art, my profession and joy was progressively alienating people from me. How to tell a genuine friend from one of those attention and money-seeking sycophants who sent you a four-tiered cake complete with male quartet to wish you ‘endless happiness and health’ you on your ‘special day’? And for the record, I kid you not, it did happen.

So, from meeting up with a bunch of friends to go for a night out; to simply having a meal; until at forty-six now, my best friend and I merely toast the occasion during lunch. Just the two of us.

Until now.

There’s one extra person.

Who is possibly more important than any of the thousands I’ve already passed forty-six years with. The man who was upset I hadn’t told him I had just grown another year older. Who cared enough to organise a dinner for me at the drop of a hat when he found out we’d not celebrated my birthday.

I hate birthdays.

But with him in my life…I think he just might be able to change my mind.

Even sitting in this trashy restaurant with just him and Beanie…I already sense that emotion and anticipation welling up within me…the feelings I hadn’t experienced since I was six years old.

If Henry were here, it would be perfect, but it’s still good enough. More than enough.

I hated birthdays.

But right now, with my food, friends and family right by my side…I can’t quite remember why.

Everything I need and want is by my side.

My forty-sixth year is going to be a good one. After all, I have a god watching out for me now.

TBC...

Well, you've read this far! I'll be working on the next bit as soon as :o)halo informs me she wouldn't mind reading the next chapter. Hehe.

And I took a few liberties with Viggo's scar - in RL, he got it when he was 17, but I changed it because...I have the power to. Hehe, talk about power abuse!

Crap, it's 6:40 am AGAIN. What is wrong with me?? I have to get up in an hour or so for uni. Damnit. No point sleeping. Might as well keep on watching QaF...la la la...hehe...

Thanks to you all for the encouragement! Feedback is always appreciated. =) And welcome to all the newbies reading this - welcome to the insanity!!
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Flying With Eagles