Hard Habit To Break
Pairing: Sean/Elijah
Disclaimer: Don’t know these people. No offence intended or money made.
I promised myself that I wouldn't do this again, wouldn't sit
here gazing at the phone, wishing it would ring, wishing it would
be you and that I could hear your voice again, make you giggle in
that girly, high-pitched way of yours.
I'm a grown man, for heaven's sake, with a life of my own, a
successful career, finally succeeding in my lifetime's ambition
of earning respect for my work behind the camera as well as in
front.
I wasn't ready for this; wasn't ready for him, with his
energy and fizz, his infectious love of life. The way he shows
one front to the world, the front that he has cultivated over the
years, and yet if people would just look they would see for
themselves; the bitten nails and the incessant smoking - nerves
are his constant companion.
I see that side; he shows that to me. He comes to me when the
world is too much, when people start to frighten him with their
demands.
"They don't understand," I told him once, deep in the
night when he had worn himself out pacing the floor until he had
almost dropped with exhaustion. "You're too young for this.
It happened too fast." I took him to bed and pulled him to
me, willing him to relax. PR, photographers, fans, all in his
face all day, and his natural good nature had cracked, leaving
him naked and open to the world, having to work too hard to hide
behind his facade of geeky, giggly nerdboy. He had come to me as
soon as he could escape, tears behind his eyes and desperate
strain in his voice.
"I'm not," he had protested softly, pushing himself
further into my arms. "I'm just ... I want to hide for a
while." He reached up and kissed me then, and I couldn't
help smiling. "I can hide here," he said, putting his
hand on my chest. "No matter where I am, or what I'm doing,
I'm here as well. This is where I live, you know?"
I rested my chin on the top of his head, wrinkling my nose as his
hair tickled my face, then rolled over and pushed him into the
mattress, not wanting anything, just wanting to make him feel
safe.
"That's nice," he said, cupping my face between his
hands. "I don't know where I'd be if I didn't have this,
have you." He moved his hands, tracing my shoulders and
chest, then down my arms and finally resting them in the small of
my back. "I don't know what star I was born under, to have
this luck."
"Luck doesn't come into it." I move slightly, trying to
cover more of him. We're the same height, just about, but I
always feel as if I'm bigger, somehow. Maybe it's just that I'm
older, have learned to hide the vulnerability that sometimes
shows in his eyes.
"The first time I saw you," he said, his hands kneading
the small of my back. "In that lobby.... I was just finding
you again, I knew you. Remember when I jumped into your arms, how
it made you laugh?"
"How could I forget?" I asked. "That was some
leap."
"But you were ready for me," he said. "You knew
what I was going to do and you were ready. And what you said; you
didn't say 'hello Frodo', or 'hello Elijah'. Do you remember what
you said?" He paused and then reached up to kiss my chest.
"You said, 'there you are.' You knew me, just the same way I
knew you."
I rested my face in the crook of his neck, feeling his pulse
under my lips, not knowing what to say.
"You," he continued after a minute's silence,
"make me. Make me what I am. Complete the circle. I don't
work without you, don't function. You're always, always in my
head, even when a continent separates us. I hear you every
day."
He smiled at me, half embarrassed, half smug, and he kissed me
and then, worn out with the emotion of the evening, he fell
asleep, leaving me wide awake and frustrated.
The ringing of the phone drags me out of my reverie, and I pick
it up, almost dropping the receiver in my eagerness.
"Hi," he says. "Were you staring at the phone
again? Weirdo."
"Your weirdo," I say, my eyes closing in relief at the
sound of his voice, before I mentally chastise myself for my
reaction.
"Oh yes," he agrees, and his voice drops slightly. I
hear a rustling noise and know that he's settling down on the bed
for a long talk, so I let myself flop back into the sofa
cushions.
I don't know how long we talk for, or what we talk about -
everything and nothing, long pauses where we do nothing but
listen to each other breathe.
"I miss you so much," he says, his voice beginning to
fade as sleep creeps up on him. "Another two weeks until I'm
done here. That's not good..." I listen as his breathing
gets steadier, and after five minutes I say his name. He grunts
but doesn't answer.
"Goodnight, Elijah," I whisper. "I'll see you
soon."
I put the phone and stand up, looking at it, just in case he
wakes up and calls me back. He doesn't, and so with a final
glance around the room I make my way to the front door. I pick up
my bag and step out into the night.
I've got a plane to catch.
The End
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