First Meetings Part Two
Pairing: Sean/Elijah
Disclaimer: Don’t know these people. No offence intended or money made.
Don’t want to leave this place; this time, this happiness…
So. That was nice. And unexpected. I tilt my head so that the water’s hitting me right in the face, and I open my mouth a bit, snorting as the jet hits me right in the back of the throat and comes down my nose. Thank god I didn’t do that last night.
Last night. God. My body feels – used. Sore and bruised and bitten. I never thought it would feel like this, not with Sean; I thought he’d be more – careful with the goods. Damn, but I’m glad I was wrong. I don’t think I’ve ever had a night like that before; people seem to worry way too much that I might bruise – and okay, I will, but I don’t care.
Not just that, though; not just hot and heavy. It was kind and sweet as well. He made me feel very special, but he’s made me feel like that since the first day I saw him, the first day I threw myself at him like some over-eager puppy, and he caught me, the light in his eyes practically dazzling me. I didn’t want him to put me down then, and that’s how I’ve felt ever since.
I turn round, letting the water pound onto the back of my neck. The great thing about the water in this place is that it’s really wet. Doesn’t hold back, and you end up like a drowned rat. The first time I turned a shower on in my new apartment, the force of it had me flattened against the far wall before I could so much as blink. Scared the hell out of me. The others had the same reaction; the thought of Billy’s pale, surprised face still makes me laugh. "I’m not used to this," he had said. "I’m used to showers where you have to speak nicely to the water before it appears."
And now we have to face the truth. No, that’s wrong, I think we both faced the truth a long time ago; we love each other and now we have to face the rest of the world with this. Well, the rest of our world, not the world at large.
Fuck.
"You’re thinking too much." His voice makes me jump so hard that I really think I leave the ground for a second and then I grin at him, a bit sheepishly, shrugging under the jet of water. He steps under the water with me and pulls me close, nothing too rough or energetic this time – I think we’re both too sore.
Funny, before I kissed him – I mean kissed him properly – I didn’t realise that such a simple action could mean so much. The guy feels right in any way you care to think of; he feels right in my head and against my body. If I could climb right down his throat and take up residence then I would. I’ve always thought that romance writers just talk a load of crap, but now I’m not so sure. He feels like someone I’ve known for years, and someone I’ve only just met.
"So tell me what you’re thinking about," he says, blinking against the steady stream of water. "Second thoughts?"
"Oh christ, no," I answer immediately. "Just trying to face up to reality, you know?"
I feel him sigh as he pulls me even closer, and I’m just about to say something, or maybe do something, which would be noble and self-sacrificing, and really fucking stupid, before I’m stopped as he shoves his tongue into my mouth.
Which is no bad way to start your day.
*
We’re starting night shoots so we don’t see anybody for the rest of the day. Normally I’d find that really creepy because there isn’t a day passes that I don’t talk to at least one of the Fellowship, but this time I don’t care – I’ve got Sean, and if we only have a little while, then I need to cram a lot into it, so that I have stuff to remember. And I don’t mean sex, or at least not only sex. There’s stuff about him that I’ve never known, never taken the time to learn. I’ve always known he’s got an amazing brain, of course, but to see him use it is awesome. I’m not stupid, but next to him I feel like some tiny kid who’s just learning. But he doesn’t patronise; he’s so fucking enthusiastic about everything that you just get kind of swept along for the ride.
But there’s a lot of sex as well. And at one point, as I strain against him, my fingers wrapped so tightly in his hair that it must really hurt him, I realise that I’ve stepped across that barrier. The barrier between friendship and love. He’s my friend, always that. But now he’s so much more.
*
The first person I see when I get out of Sean’s car is the DomBilly. One entity, absolutely no reason to think of them in any other way. As usual, they’re huddled together, talking about something which the rest of us wouldn’t understand. They’re weird, but weird in a good way.
"Hi, Elijah," Billy says, smirking at me, and I know that I’m grinning stupidly. He doesn’t say anything else, but then he doesn’t have to. I glance at Dominic but he’s looking at Sean, and there’s something in his face that I haven’t seen before. I look at Sean, but his gaze is locked with Dom’s; there’s something going on here that I don’t understand, and I look back at Billy, but his face has gone blank. As I watch him, he blinks and looks at me, half shrugging, but he doesn’t speak. What? What have I missed?
"Come on, you," Sean puts his arm around my shoulders and steers me towards the trailers, and I cast one last glance back to where the DomBilly is standing, heads close together. As I watch, Billy puts his hand against Dominic’s cheek, his thumb moving as if he was wiping something away.
"What was all that about?" I nudge Sean when he doesn’t answer me, but he just looks at me and shakes his head.
"Something and nothing," he answers obscurely. He casts a quick glance around to make sure there’s nobody near us in the gloom, and then he drags me into the shadows cast by the trailers and kisses me long and hard, forcing one leg between my thighs, positively encouraging me to rub against him, and I don’t like to disappoint. He slides his hands under my shirt and I squeak a bit, because his hands are fucking cold in the night air, but I don’t move away or anything stupid like that.
"Got Mr Frodo all turned on?" he whispers, his lips against mine, one hand reaching down to cup me through my jeans. He presses the heel of his hand down hard and I feel my back arch and my hands clench. When he pulls away and grins at me, I just stand and gape, trying to get enough oxygen back into my brain to actually speak. "Nothing I can do about it right now, we’ve got work to do."
What a fucker. I stay where I am and watch him walk away. Hell of a view.
*
Shooting’s the same as ever, but different. There’s a new tension between us, a new depth to us. I don’t know if it’ll come over on screen, but all I do know is that we’re pumping out some serious shit here; at one point I turn away from Sean/Sam, my eyes cast demurely to the ground, and as I glance up it’s a challenge to spot the guy who doesn’t have a hardon. It’s something in the air, something we’re creating, and it feels incredible.
"D’you know," Pete says, clearing his throat a bit, "I think that you’re bringing an entirely new aspect to this relationship." He runs his hand through his hair, and mutters something that sounds like "Jesus."
Exactly.
When we’re done with shooting, and the fucking Feet are off, I can’t wait, I just can’t. I’m hammering on his trailer door as the sky starts to take on the light grey before dawn. It’s a weird, hyper time of day that I don’t see all that often, and I feel out of it … unbalanced, I guess, He opens the door, nearly knocking me off the step and I’m in his arms in about a nanosecond, kissing him, my tongue in his mouth, my legs around his waist; it’s like a dirtier version of our first meeting.
I beat my own record for lack of endurance; within about a minute of him practically throwing me onto the nearest surface and shoving his hands where they can do most good, I’m shivering and shaking, coming all over him, and as my vision clears a bit, I realise that he’s laughing at me.
"What’s funny?" I demand, my legs still wrapped around him. I can feel a cramp starting up somewhere in my left thigh, but I do my best to ignore it. It also feels like there’s a stapler digging into my side, but why would there be a stapler in Sean’s trailer? But then, it is Sean; anything’s possible.
"You are. We are," he says. "We waited so long for this …" he tails off and his eyes go dark, take on that inward look they get when he’s thinking, and just missing a sigh, I push him off, crawling out from under him, re-fastening my pants and accidentally taking the stapler with me. I don’t want to start getting all heavy with him, not yet, but I can see the guilt starting, and I can’t just let him rot, can I?
"I’ll go if you want," I say softly, biting hard on my lip to stop myself from adding, like hell.
"No!" He says it so quickly, so loudly that I don’t doubt for a second that he means it. He doesn’t want me to go, but he doesn’t want to risk losing … his real life. Fuck, this was a bad, bad move. We’ve been together for less than 24 hours, and already I can see it coming to an end.
"No," he says again, turning around and taking hold of me again. "I don’t want that. I’m just… christ, Elijah, I’ve got so much to think about, so much to face." He kisses me, soft and sweet, and I press myself against him, my eyes closing in gratitude. I’m not going to ask him again, I refuse to put myself out there again. If he wants me to leave, he can fucking tell me to go.
*
So it sits there between us for the next couple of days. Well not, it’s not an ‘it’, it’s a she; his wife. Fuck. I like Chris, she’s funny and smart, but right at this moment, lying in Sean’s bed, Sean’s cock deep inside me, Sean’s sweat dripping onto me, I could wish her right out of existence. But we all know that’s not going to happen, and we can’t pretend that she’s not there.
I must have gone still or something because he says my name quietly, his hand brushing through my hair. I shake my head and move my hips, forcing him even more deeply into me, and his whole body goes tense before he starts to really pound into me. I’ve discovered that sometimes he likes this, likes to fuck hard, and I wonder if he’s trying to block out the guilt. Maybe I should try and stop him, or at least ask him, but I can’t because it feels so good, so close to line where pain and pleasure get confused, that I don’t want to lose it. It’s a new feeling, and I’m already addicted.
*
It takes him maybe a week before he actually brings himself to talk about it. We’re still night shooting, so we’re tired, although my body is finally beginning to adjust to the weird hours. His isn’t though, and when I wake up, squinting in the bright light of early afternoon, the first thing I realise is that he isn’t next to me. I’m already so used to him being there all the time that for a second I actually panic, and all kinds of strange ideas go through my mind. I sit up, staring around me a bit wildly before I glimpse him through the bedroom door, sitting on the couch, reading. I clamber out of bed and make my way into the next room, dropping a kiss on his head as I collapse next to him.
"Still not sleeping?" I pick the book out of his hand and put it on the floor. "Still not reading either, I guess."
"What do you mean?"
"You know." I rest my back against the arm of the couch and tuck my feet under his legs. "Talk to me, Sean. Come on."
"It’s Chris," he says. Oh right – ‘cos I hadn’t worked that one out, right? "I have to tell her something, and soon." He starts to idly tickle my ankles, which is a very weird sensation, but I don’t stop him because I like him to touch me. "I don’t want you to go on a guilt trip, ‘lij. This isn’t your fault."
"Well, I’m the one sleeping with you …" I begin, but stop when he glares at me.
"No you’re not. Well, you are, but it’s not about that. I came to you, remember? You only agreed to this because I went along with your conditions. It’s not your fault that my mind works like this."
"So what are you going to do about it?" I don’t think I can fight him on this; I don’t want him to keep this kind of secret from Chris, of course I don’t, but there’s a huge well of panic starting to build in me. What if I lose him so soon? I’ve only just fucking found him.
"I’ll give her a call," he says, his hand beginning to slide up my calf. "I’ll try and explain." He looks at me. "Come to bed."
I can’t refuse. If my body helps him forget his guilt, even if it’s only for a little while, then I’m hardly going to fight him off with a big stick.
*
Much as I want to listen to the conversation – or at least Sean’s side of it – I know that I shouldn’t, so I do my best to occupy myself in another room while he talks to Chris. I can’t help listening to the tone of his voice though, and it’s not sounding good. I wonder if I should just leave – I mean leave him? Get out, go to my own home and never come near him again. Except I don’t know if I can do that, not now. When I think of the way his hands feel when they’re on my body, and the way he makes my name sound I realise that I’ve fallen a long way in and I don’t think I can get out.
But I also know that if he comes back from making that call and says that the choice has to be made, then I will walk away and never look back; never let him see what it does to me, because he belongs with his wife and child. It hurts me, but that’s how it is, and we’d both be fooling ourselves if we tried to pretend it could be any other way.
I decide to make some coffee – just what I need, caffeine to make me even more jittery, but it’s too early for a proper drink – and at least it’ll keep me occupied. I head for the kitchen trying to block out the sound of his voice and open the cupboard. It strikes me then as being incredibly surreal that I know my way around his kitchen better than I know my own. And as that thought takes root I drop the cup I’m holding, watching blankly as it shatters at my feet.
I’m scared. I’m really really scared, for all kinds of different reasons, and when Sean appears in the doorway, phone still tight against his ear, I don’t care that he’s talking to his wife and trying to explain what I’ve done to him; I just go to him and wrap my arms around him, nudging at him until he puts his free arm around me, needing the security of it.
Turns out his conversation was nearly over, and after a few more words, he hangs up and then throws the phone in the direction of the counter, where it makes an awful noise. He doesn’t seem to care though – he holds me so tightly that I can hardly breathe, and we just stand together in the middle of the kitchen, surrounded by broken china, and he rocks me.
"Do you want me to leave?" I ask him finally, my mouth against his neck. "If you tell me to, I’ll go and you can just pretend this never happened."
"No I can’t," he replies. "And I don’t want to. We’ll work it out."
But how? How the fuck do we ‘work it out’? He pulls me still closer and his body feels so right against me; so warm and solid that I react without even meaning to, sliding my hands down his back, hooking them into his waistband. Since that first night, although it’s sometimes been hard and bruising, it’s never been that desperate again; it’s taken on a rhythm and a pace of its own, familiar and easy.
This time though, there’s a feeling of uncertainty, and I hang on to just enough of my sanity to steer us towards the carpeted floor of the lounge and away from the shards of china before I practically trip him up and drape myself over him, kissing him and kissing him as if it’s all going to be taken away from me.
Clothes are in the way, but once we get rid of them I get down to serious business, and when I push into him he’s already so far gone that he seems to have forgotten how to speak, how to think. Which is what I wanted; what I want for myself.
I love watching him like this; I know he’s embarrassed about the extra poundage he has to carry for Sam, but to me it’s beautiful, it makes him what he is; and anyway, it doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s a beautiful man, inside and out. As I move inside him, I knead some of that extra flesh between my hands, then slide my fingers up his chest, tracing his body, committing it to memory, just in case.
He comes with a noise somewhere between a gasp and a grunt, and when I collapse on top of him, he gathers me close, wrapping me in arms that feel more like home than anything else ever has.
"See?" he says softly. "How can we pretend this never happened? How can you even think that?"
"I’m stupid," I say. "I didn’t mean it, I don’t want to pretend." Because I’m preparing myself to say goodbye, Sean. You, with all your vast intellect should realise that.
*
Oh shit. Oh fuck. Oh mommy. I can hear the rise and fall of their voices through the door, and Chris seems okay, at least she’s not shouting and screaming, which I think I would be at this point. I’m eternally grateful that she hasn’t brought Ally with her, but even as I think that I know I’m being petty; she’s way too mature for that, to use her child against me.
The door opens and I stand up, taking a step forwards. Briefly, I see Sean, but after letting Chris into the room, he backs out and shuts us in together.
"Hi, Elijah," she says, walking up to me, and before I can so much as open my mouth, she slaps me so hard that I take a massive step backwards and fall over the leg of the chair, just managing to stop myself from falling flat on my ass. My whole face feels as if it’s on fire with a mixture of embarrassment and shock. And pain. That fucking hurt.
"What the hell do you think you’re doing?" she hisses, following me as I scramble backwards until she’s seriously in my face. "Are you deliberately trying to break up my marriage? Take my husband away from me?" She reaches up and I’m so convinced that she’s going to hit me again, that I feel myself flinch. I don’t know how to fight back against a woman – I mean, I can’t hit her back, can I?
"No, Chris .." I start, but she’s not even listening.
"And is that why you get on so well with my daughter? Trying to get her on your side? It won’t work, Elijah."
"I’m not …" I say again, but now she’s wheeled away from me and is standing looking out of the window, her shoulders set and tense.
"I love him, Elijah. You can’t have him."
"I don’t want him," I say, and then mentally slap myself for lying so outrageously. She knows it’s a lie because there’s no way that snort she just gave was anything but sarcastic.
"Shall I tell you what’s really stupid?" She pauses for a second. "I could see it happening, right in front of me. I watched him try and deny it, and I watched you as you grew more and more bitter and frustrated." Her shoulders sag as she sighs, and then sighs again. Fuck it all, she’s crying.
"Chris, please," I say, finally approaching her, and putting my hand on her shoulder. She tenses, but doesn’t shrug me off. "I would be lying if I said I didn’t love him, but I would never ever want to break you up. You belong together, that’s obvious. God, Chris, he lights up when you’re around. And we won’t even begin talking about how much he adores Ally."
"Then what are you doing? Why are you doing this to him? To us?"
"I couldn’t … Chris, I tried. We both tried so much, but it was just …" I pause and shrug, even though I know she can’t see me. "You know what he’s like, how easy he is to love, and I just fell so hard." I move around until I can see her face. "I promise you that I’ll back off right now if you tell me to. That’s what I told Sean, and I’m telling you that now. I want him to be happy, and he’s happy when he’s with you."
She drops her face into her hands and starts to really cry now, and I feel so small that I could hide under the nearest rock. I’ve made a grown woman cry. Haven’t done that since I said goodbye to my mom when I came to New Zealand. Not really sure what to do for the best, I reach out for her, and to my surprise she turns around and collapses into my arms.
"I won’t let you take him," she says, and then that’s it for the next few minutes; just her crying and me patting her shoulder in a truly awkward way.
Finally she pulls away and wipes her face with her hands; she looks at me and smiles, embarrassed I think. God knows I am.
"I’m sorry …" we both say it at the same time, and then stop again, and she laughs a bit. I don’t have it in me to laugh, or frown, or cry. I just want to go away and curl up until it’s safe to come out again. Oh, ha! Come out! Oh, shut up Elijah.
"Come and sit down," she says to me, dragging me over to the couch and pulling me down to sit beside her. She puts one hand against my face, her fingers shaping the mark I know that she left there. I’m pale, I bruise easily, and she really smacked me.
"I’m not going to apologise for doing that, it’s no less than you deserve." She pauses and part of me is measuring the distance between the couch and the door and wondering whether I can get there before she explodes and pounds me into a pulp.
"The only thing stopping me from killing you and throwing your body off the balcony is that I know you tried to resist it. Sean told me; he told me that he was the one who pushed, who wanted this more than you …"
"No," I say, before I can stop myself. "Not more than me, never that." Oh god, that’s so the wrong thing to say, but I can hear myself starting to ramble now, even though part of my brain is screaming at me to stop. "I love him," I say. "But I would never want to hurt you, or Ally. I told him all that, Chris. That I never wanted to hurt anybody … but, it just … I fell in love."
"You’re just a boy," she says, which is a bit condescending, but I don’t seem to be in any position to argue. "What are you, 19? I know you think you’re mature and wise, but you’re just a 19 year old boy, Elijah."
"I’m old enough to know what I want," I snap, regretting the tone even as I speak. "Chris, please tell me what you want me to do. I’ll do it, for both of you."
"No, you don’t mean that." She smiles at me, and it’s sad and angry at the same time. "You’ll do it for him." She sighs and clasps her hands in her lap. "I love my husband, and I want him to be happy. In some strange, perverted way I think that if he was going to have an on-set affair then I’d rather it was with a man; it’s less threatening, somehow. I can’t stop this, I know I can’t. You’re going to be working together for the next year and I don’t have the time to be here constantly."
"If you told him to stop, he would," I venture.
"Yes, I think he would," she agrees, "but it would break his heart to see you every day, to be close to you every day … and he would feel guilty because he wouldn’t be able to get you out of his head. You see, Elijah, you don’t know him as well as I do … I’ve watched him grow up and mature, and I know how his mind and heart work."
So do I! I want to scream at her. Stop treating me like an annoyance, and treat me like an adult! But I don’t say anything, because I don’t have the right.
"So this is how we’ll play it," she says. "While he’s here alone, then he’s yours, but you’re subtle about it, you don’t fawn all over each other in public. When I’m here, then you back off. Ally loves you, and you can still see her, but you don’t spend time alone with him when you’re not working." She stops and swallows noisily. "I don’t think you and I can ever be friends after this, but you’re a good, kind boy – person. If we work hard, we can do this."
"I never meant to hurt anybody," I say, and I’m so close to crying myself that I can hear how strange my voice sounds.
"Nobody ever does," she answers, standing up. I stand up as well, and we both walk towards the door. She leans towards me and to my surprise kisses me on the cheek she slapped. "We would have been good friends you and I," she says, before opening the door.
I can feel myself actually starting to tremble with reaction, and I make my way over to the couch and collapse on it, picking up a cushion and putting it over my face, possibly attempting to smother myself. We’ll never know because the next thing I know, the cushion is being pulled away, and Sean’s hovering over me like the mother hen he is.
"Was it really bad?" he asks softly, cupping my face in his hand, smiling softly as I shake my head. "Liar."
"What are you doing here?" I ask him, looking around, expecting Chris to materialise at his shoulder. He knows what I’m thinking because he shakes his head.
"It’s okay," he assures me. "We’ve got a bit of time. She knows where I am."
"We agreed that you wouldn’t see me away from the set, not when she’s here."
"I know." He sits down on the edge of the couch and I automatically make room for him, shifting my legs a bit. "But this is a special circumstance. I was hardly going to leave you for the next month without knowing you were okay." He leans down and kisses my cheek. "Did she slap you?"
"Oh yes," I say in a heartfelt tone. "But I deserved it."
"Nobody deserves to be hit," he says, frowning, "but she was angry, I guess."
"Doesn’t matter." I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him down for a proper kiss, sliding a hand into his shirt. He laughs into my mouth and pulls back.
"I have to go now. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay with all this."
"I don’t have a choice, do I?" I regret saying it as soon as the words leave my mouth because the last thing he needs is me sounding like a sulky kid, even if that’s how I feel. I try and make up for it by grinning at him and kissing him again. "Go on," I say. "It’ll be fine."
"Okay." He stands up. "We’re going out, be about an hour." He doesn’t say the rest of the sentence. Make sure you’re gone by the time we get back. Instead he looks at me and says my name very softly, and I know, more than if he’d spoken solidly for half an hour, how much this hurts him. And in a stupid, selfish way that makes me feel better. "I love you," he says before he leaves.
I give him five minutes to get clear before I get off the couch and calmly go through the house, collecting my stuff, making sure that there’s nothing here to remind Chris of my presence. I actually manage to avoid having a very childish tantrum until I get back to my own place, and when that’s over and I’m sitting amidst the complete wreckage of what was once my kitchen, I start to laugh. And then that laughter turns into tears and I give into self pity.
*
And that’s how Dominic finds me an hour later as he barges through my unlocked door, all curled up into a little ball of self misery and biting my nails.
"Oy," he gives me a friendly kick in the kidneys. "Look at the state of this place. If you want to go shopping, Lij, you just had to say. You didn’t have to wreck the joint."
"Fuck off," I mutter in my most friendly fashion, but he ignores it, crouching down next to me.
"Get up. There’s no point in this, you know."
"There is a point. There’s a point to everything. Just can’t remember what it is. Fuck off."
"No." He pulls at my arm, and I give in, just too damn tired to really care. He drags me to my feet and into the living room where he dumps me on the couch – I’ve spent a lot of time lying on couches today – then he sits next to me, and waits. I hold out for a good minute before telling him everything.
"Oh, you twat," he says supportively, as I come to the end of my ramble. "that’s the most incoherent crap I’ve ever heard you spout, and christ knows I’ve heard some rubbish from you." He puts his arms round me, and I lean my head on his shoulder, grateful for the touch. "Sean has fancied you from the second he saw you, that much is obvious, and it’s also kind of obvious that you felt the same. There’s no guilt here, Elijah, none. You couldn’t help it, and you’re not doing anything behind Chris’s back, are you? She knows everything, and she’s practically given her blessing."
"If a smack round the face counts as a blessing .." I mutter, still feeling sorry for myself.
"Well she was hardly going to welcome you to the fold, was she? Tit." He’s silent for a second, and then he pushes me away and stands up. "Come on, let’s go indulge in a bit of retail therapy. Thank god night shooting’s over for a while, I was going spare. I’d just like to say that not being able to shop or go to the pub is the greatest torture there is. Well that, and wearing those fucking feet."
"Don’t want to," I grumble, still not ready to give up on the sulky kid thing, but Dom’s had enough of that and he throws my jacket at me with a bit more force than he needs to, then stands there until I drag myself to my feet and put it on.
"Oh come on, you dozy wimp. I’ve never seen you so reluctant to shop. You’ve single handedly boosted New Zealand’s economy, and they’ve been in a recession since night shooting started, so come on."
Honestly, might as well argue with your shadow.
*
Once Dom has decided that He Knows What Is Best, the day kinda gets away from me. We go and pick up his gestalt entity, who in another life was called Billy, and go shopping. I buy enormous amounts of crap, much to the delight of the DomBilly and, apparently, New Zealand as a whole. It seems a natural next step that we end up in a bar, and mysteriously Orlando and Viggo appear, claiming that they’d been out ‘doing stuff’. I expect the Bean will turn up as well and pretend he’s looking for a map of Sheffield or something. For a bunch of actors, they’re all really crap at pretending.
But it’s impossible to mope when they’re around; believe me, I want to; I want to wallow like … well, like a thing that wallows, but they won’t let me, and some tiny part of me that isn’t obsessed with thinking about Sean and Chris and about how much of a bruise is developing on my face, warms and responds to them.
"Look!" The drunken scream in my ear makes me jump so hard that I nearly spill my drink. I turn and glare at Dominic, who doesn’t notice my righteous anger, being way too excited by whatever it is he’s looking at. So I look. And then I do spill my drink.
"Well, fuck me," is all I can think of to say. Viggo and Billy, standing in a corner. Kissing. I look at Dom again. "Don’t you want to go and get your other half out of the clutches of the dreaded Viggo?"
"Nope." Dom sits back and smiles. "He’ll come back when he’s ready." He glances at me. "He’s not my other half, you know, not like you mean. Not like you and Sean. Sure, he’s the part of me that I didn’t know was missing, but … not like that."
"But he is your other half," I argue mildly. "Just putting it another way doesn’t make it different. And anyway, isn’t Viggo unsuitably tall?"
"My platonic other half," he agrees after another mouthful of beer. "My experimental, platonic other half." He shifts then, turning sideways on the bench so that he’s not looking directly at Billy and Viggo.
"You never kiss him then?" I ask, meaning to keep it light, and he smiles and shrugs, not answering.
"I’d like to kiss you."
My mind decides to take a short vacation, so I do my fish gasping for air impersonation for a second or two. Oh.
"That came out of nowhere," I finally splutter. "Why?"
He shrugs again. "Why not?"
I laugh, a bit nervously, and then lean forward and kiss his cheek, trying to work out just how we managed to get here. "There, kissed. Better now?"
"That doesn’t count," he says. "You always kiss me like that. You kiss everybody like that." He puts a hand on my leg. Shit. Shit, shit shit. How do I get out of this without saying the wrong thing?
"Come on, mate, you’re drunk and I’m taking you home." Oh Billy, thank you. I could kiss you right now. Or perhaps that would be a really bad move.
I can see Dominic think about arguing, but then he seems to change his mind, and lets Billy pull him to his feet.
"He’s drunk, Elijah," Billy says, making sure I get the idea. "People do strange things when they’re drunk."
"Too right," I say, a bit too loudly and obviously. "You kissed Viggo, for fuck’s sake."
"Night, night, Elijah," he says, smiling at me, that strange, guarded smile he uses when he’s not sure exactly what’s going on. "You all right for getting home?"
"Sure, I’ll get a cab," I assure him. "Night Bills, night Dom."
I watch as they leave the bar, and it’s really obvious that Dominic is about as far from drunk as it’s possible to be.
*
It’s a miserable, weird, fucked up month. On set, when I’m Frodo, I try and forget that he’s Sean and just concentrate on Sam, but then a scene will end, and those eyes will crinkle in concern and even though he doesn’t say it, I know this is as bad for him as it is for me. The only bright spot is Ally, who has adopted me and become engaged to Dom. The DomBilly and I take her out and spoil her something rotten and then, just as she’s getting whiny and scratchy and tired, we deliver he back to her parents. Chris is perfect, just perfect; she’s friendly with me but keeps her distance, and nothing is ever mentioned about our ‘arrangement’.
"I wish I could hate her." It’s late and we’re at Billy’s. I’m curled up in a chair whining, and the DomBilly are sitting on the couch. I think Billy may be painting Dom’s toenails, but I’ve taken my contacts out so I can’t be absolutely sure.
"Why don’t you?" Billy asks, not looking up.
"Because she’s too damn nice to hate. Of course she’s too nice; she’s married to Sean, the Nicest Man On Earth. With capital letters." I wriggle a bit. "and I’m horny as fuck, seeing him all the time and not able to do anything to him."
"Too much information." Billy looks up and grins. "Deal with it; it’s what your right hand’s for."
Dominic slides down until he’s lying on the couch, and Billy shifts to accommodate him without a murmur, although he does look up, and even without the contacts I see him shift and squeeze Dominic’s ankle. One day we’re going have to face this, me and Dominic, but I don’t want to, I don’t want to have to go up to him and say, "you want to fuck me, don’t you?" Way to ruin a friendship.
But it’s become more and more obvious over the past month, as I’m thrown into their company, that Dominic does feel like that. But until one of us cracks then I’m willing to ignore it if he is. There’s only so much angst I can take.
When the phone rings, we all look at it and then at each other. Billy shrugs and goes back to painting Dom’s nails, Dom can hardly move and leave his feet behind, so that leaves …
"Hello?"
"I knew you’d be there."
"Fuck!" I sit down, grinning like a fiend at the nothing in particular. "Is it me you want?"
"Always." Sean sounds … high. His voice is breathless and he talks so fast that I can hardly make out what he says. When he hangs up I just stare at the receiver for what seems like ages.
"Well?" asks Billy eventually.
"Chris goes home tomorrow." I put the receiver against my lips, fighting down what feels horribly like a crying fit. "I get him back."
TBC
An Ending
by Wendy Cope
Don’t want to leave this place,
This time, this happiness;
Loud water, muddy tracks,
Trees rooted in pink rocks,
Our lush, steep-sided glen,
Friends I may see again
But certainly not here,
Not in this world we were.
For one short month our home,
This world will soon be gone.
Though those unruly birds
Still chirp and caw, though woods
Breathe on, if we return,
Each one of us alone,
It will not be to find
What we now leave behind.
Out there beyond the gates,
We’ll take our random routes
Through time and space. How far,
How long, we can’t be sure.
We’ll have to say goodbye
To more than this one day.
Tomorrow, we rehearse,
And quietly leave this p[ace.
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