First Meetings Part 3
Pairing: Sean/Elijah
Disclaimer: Don’t know these people. No offence intended or money made.
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)
It's coming to an end now, this special time of ours, and it's starting to come between us no matter how hard we try and pretend otherwise. I've been watching him today, out on his surfboard, screaming and laughing with the others, and I can see that he has his acting face on - he's being 'Elijah Wood', geeky and charming. But if you look properly - and I do look properly - I can see his eyes. He's preparing to be hurt, and hurt by me. He’s building up a wall against me because he doesn’t know what else to do.
As I watch, he completely fails to catch the wave and is dumped unceremoniously in the sea, only to emerge, spluttering and laughing, making suitably obscene hand gestures in response to the catcalls from the others, and somewhere inside me, something rears up and smacks me hard. We’re both behaving as if this is the end of ‘us’, of what we have. But it won’t be. He staggers out of the sea and collapses on the hard sand just out of the reach of the waves, and I can see him coughing and spluttering, and taking a deep breath I approach him. He looks up as my shadow falls over him.
"Hi," I say lamely. "You okay?"
"Sure," he answers. "Take more than half the - whatever Ocean this is - to kill me." He coughs again and then lies back on the sand, squinting up at me. "What?"
"Nothing." I sit next to him, close enough to feel the sun soaked heat of him. "I just - missed you," I finish lamely, and he laughs.
"Understandable, because I am amazingly missable," he says. "People have said it in the past, you know: Christ, Elijah Wood, he’s one missable guy." He pauses and I’m almost tempted to tear my gaze away from the horizon when I feel his hand pressing on my leg. "I’m here, Sean. I’m always here."
I look down at him, and my stomach contracts. We’ve been obeying the rules for almost a year now, and although it’s been so hard sometimes, we’ve done well, I think. We show very little in the way of affection in public - oh, we hug and we kiss because that’s allowed; it’s one of the great joys of this cast - but the hugging and the kissing has to seem random and indiscriminate. If Elijah kisses me, then he has to kiss Orlando or Billy as well; if I hug him, then I hug Dominic or Viggo. It’s how we’ve made it work.
This time though, with just our friends for company, we both let the rules slip a little, and when he reaches for my hand, I don’t fight it; I simply entwine my fingers with his and watch as he moves our joined hands to his mouth, his lips, dry with salt and caked with sand resting against my skin. He looks at me and I shiver inside as I feel his tongue against my hand, very gently, a different kind of heat to that his skin is kicking out, but still heat.
"You taste of salt," he mutters. "Of salt and of Sean."
I want to reach down and kiss him, discovering his taste after this long day by the sea, but there are certain things that I won't permit myself. I try and satisfy myself with a touch, letting my finger trace the shape of his mouth, his lips curving in a smile as I linger a little too long.
"Not going to be easy, is it?" he says quietly. "You been thinking about it?"
"I've been watching you think about it," I hedge. "I wish I had the answer, but I just don't."
He shrugs, and squints up at me, eyes narrowed against the glare. He doesn't move our hands away from his mouth, and it's pretty obvious that he's hiding now. It's not like him, this hesitancy; Elijah is brave and forthright nearly all the time; even when he's not entirely sure how to handle a situation, he will simply find someone to ask. This silence is unsettling.
Just as I'm beginning to feel awkward, he speaks. "Can we go back now?"
"What about the others?" I ask. "Three people and all those surfboards will be a bit of a squeeze in one car."
"Oh they won't mind," he says, sitting up and gazing at Orli, Dom and Billy, currently attempting to drown each other. "They'll just have to sit on each other's knees. Obviously not all three of them," he amends quickly. "because one of them will have to drive...." he tails off and shrugs, nervous. Not like him.
"Come on." I stand up and hold out my hand to him. "Go get in the car. We'll leave a note on the windshield of the other one so that they know where we've gone. It would be just like them to assume that we'd both drowned."
"In the car?"
"Oh yes." We walk towards the car, not touching but still close enough to feel the sun heat from his body, and once I've left the note, I drive us back. He rests his head against the headrest and looks out the window, a million miles away from me. I reach over and rest my hand on his leg. He covers my fingers with his, but doesn’t speak.
*
Back at his house, he's still quiet, wandering aimlessly around the kitchen, making coffee and then leaving it on the side, pulling salad out of the fridge and not closing the door. I sit in the lounge pretending to read, but the atmosphere is hardly conducive to concentration. But the silence is preferable to the sudden smashing of glass. I drop the book and make it to the kitchen in record time.
Elijah is standing over the sink, blood dripping from a cut in his hand, surrounded by the remains of the glass.
"Lijah!" I pull at his wrist, trying to see his hand, but he pulls it away, muttering something about it being fine. "It's not fine, let me see."
"Fuck off, Sean!" He pulls away and folds his arms across his chest, one fist clenched around the cut. "Just fuck off and leave me alone."
"What?" I step towards him, but I'm stopped dead by his expression. "What?"
"Fuck off," he practically hisses. "Just leave me alone and let me deal with it. I'll manage."
"But I'm here, and I want to help," I say.
"I don't need your help, I'm not a kid, dependent on the grown ups."
"I never said you were," I protest. "Lijah, I just want to help you. Let me see your hand."
"No!" He squeezes it tightly and I can see how much it hurts.
"Why are you doing this?" I ask. "Elijah?"
"I'm not dependent on anyone," he says, looking and sounding like a sulky child. "I haven’t relied on anyone for years, needed anyone."
"Maybe you should," I say softly, not giving in to the temptation to cross the space between us and simply … touch him. "Lijah, people need you, you know? It doesn’t make you weak if you give in and let yourself need."
"Yes it does," he replies, although at least his voice has lost that sharp edge. His head is still down though. "I don’t want to be weak."
"You’re not," I assure him, reaching out and letting my hand brush against his wrist. "You’re strong, stronger than almost anybody I know. Let me help you."
His eyes flick up and then back down again, and very slowly he holds out his hand letting me see the cut.
"It won’t hurt," I say, and he laughs.
"It already does."
*
I hate this. I hate the way that it feels as if something that was so fresh and exciting is dying on the vine.
Watching him now as he slips effortlessly into Frodo mode, I can feel a headache coming on; a headache of astronomical proportions, and I squeeze the bridge of my nose between thumb and forefinger, willing the pain away.
"You know what you should do, don’t you?" Dominic lands in the chair next to me. He has taken to watching Elijah like a hawk, and I should have realised this was coming.
"Well I’m sure that you’re going to tell me," I say, too tired to even snap.
"You should tell him to get lost, you should dump him; you should give him a fucking chance, Sean. He doesn’t have a chance with you, you must realise that."
"You mean a chance with you?" Oh dear, I didn’t mean to say that. The way that Dominic tenses up tells me that he wasn’t expecting it either. He takes a breath and then lets it out again.
"Yes" he says, more softly than he intended, I think. "Why not me? I could make him a damn sight happier than you do. I mean, look at him Sean; you’ve taken all that energy of his and you’ve … I don’t know … sucked it from him like you’re some kind of vampire."
"He’s tired, that’s all." I protest. "We’re all tired."
"What are you going to do? When this is all over and real life comes crashing back in on you? You can’t pretend that you can just carry on like this. He deserves more than just being your mistress." We’re silent for a second, both watching Elijah, both wrapped in our own thoughts.
Billy breaks the silence, saying Dom’s name and touching him on the arm. "Come on," he says, and Dom goes, just like that. The one person he seems to obey without question is Billy, and I’m grateful. I don’t know what the answer is.
"He’s right," Billy says, just as he turns to leave, pushing Dom ahead of him. "About the energy thing."
I watch as they wander off, Billy’s hand resting on the nape of Dom’s neck, and I wonder; if we had been able to keep it like that - if Elijah and I had managed to nurture our friendship without the physical side - would he have been happier?
I look over at him again just as the scene ends, and he stretches huge and catlike. He meets my eyes and winks, and I grin back at him, unable to help myself.
I do love him so very much.
*
"What?" Elijah hands me the coffee he has just made and without ceremony, deposits himself in my lap, causing me to make a noise that could rightly be described as a squeak as I hold the steaming cup of liquid at arm’s length in an attempt to save us both from a scalding.
"What?"
"What are you thinking about?" He wraps his arms around my neck and nuzzles my ear, making me laugh.
"Thinking about you," I answer. "It’s what I usually think about."
He shifts until he’s straddling me and then takes my coffee and puts the cup on the table next to the couch.
"I don’t regret this, you know." He kisses me, sweet and soft. "what we’ve done, what we did." He kisses me again. "What we’re still doing."
I sigh. "I just feel as if I’ve let you down. You deserve more than this."
"I don’t want to talk about it, not anymore." Another kiss, this one deeper and more demanding. "We don’t have much longer now, and I’m fucked if I’m spending it mooching about sighing at sunsets. Come on, big boy, take me to bed."
"I can’t very well take you to bed with you sitting on me," I say, my hands sliding around his hips and pulling him closer.
"Improvise," he mutters, his lips against mine.
So I do, lifting him up, grunting as his weight nearly causes me an injury. He wraps his legs around my waist and we both attempt to make it to the bedroom, but my back gives out halfway, as does his grip, and we end up in a tangle on the floor, still laughing. And it’s great and perfect, and just how it should be with us. Just how it always was.
And when we finally do make it to bed, it’s great and perfect, too, and afterwards as he sleeps draped over me, snuffling occasionally, that’s pretty damn good too.
*
And so we make it through the next few days, and it’s good again; there’s an underlying current of sadness, a knowledge that things will change, but he is Elijah again; wild and funny and so loving that all I can do is respond, helpless to challenge it, not even wanting to.
"They’re watching us," he mutters to me one afternoon as I watch him having his Feet reapplied. "What do they think we’re going to do?"
"They’re just concerned about you," I assure him. "You’re tired."
"I’ve been tired for 15 months," he laughs. "But I haven’t had people watching me every time I turn round. It’s like being the star of some bizarre peep show; everybody’s staring at me and I have no idea what I’m supposed to do." He pauses and takes a huge drag on his cigarette, angling his head so that the smoke blows upwards.
"You could do your exotic dancing," I offer, and he snorts.
"Yes, it’s very exotic," he agrees. "I’m doing it now."
I look at him standing stock still and laugh. After a second, he joins in.
*
This is it. Our last day with all the packing done, and some of the big stuff already sent ahead, back home. ‘Home’. Strange to think of another place as home after so long spent in this place. With this man.
He’s leaning against the back of the couch, arms folded, regarding me with a gaze which is level and a little bit unnerving. In too short a time, we have to leave this place and go to the farewell party - or as Orli put it, "the final farewell party," since we seem to have been going to them for at least the past month, but this time it really is it; we’ll be splitting up afterwards, going our separate ways.
"Are you okay?" I ask him finally, not knowing what else to say.
"What do you think?" he asks. "I’m fucking terrified. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I’m out there -," he waves vaguely at the windoww - "trying to find out what ‘normal’ means." He shakes his head. "What about you?"
"Don’t know," I admit, shrugging. "This has been ‘normal’ for such a long time…" I trail off, and he laughs under his breath.
"We’re not going to talk about it, are we? Not going to wonder what happens when we get back and Chris is there waiting to claim you." He rubs his hands over his face. "I don’t know, Sean. What are we supposed to do? I feel like I’m being eaten alive by doubt and guilt." He drops his hands and looks at me. "Come on Sean, tell me. What do I do?"
I look at him helplessly. I know what I want to say. I promised myself I wouldn’t, but I know that if I open my mouth then that’s exactly what I will say.
"I have tried to be so damn mature over this, Sean. I didn’t let you near me until you knew the rules - even though I was burning up inside. I did what Chris wanted, went by her rules, because she deserves all the respect in the world and then some more just for putting up with this set up." He moves away and goes to stand by the window. I can see how tense his shoulders are and I’m torn; I don’t know whether I should go to him and hold him or whether I should just let him get through this by himself. I think that if I go to him I will be rebuffed, but I can feel my heart aching for what I’m putting him through.
"You have been mature," I say finally when he shows no sign of breaking the silence. "Don’t put yourself down. It’s me, I should never have started this."
"You were as bad as me." His voice is muffled, and for a horrible second I think he may be crying, but he’s just gnawing at his finger. "You didn’t know what you were letting yourself in for, not really. I just fell for you and I never wanted to."
"I did know," I reply, levering myself off the couch, giving in to instinct and going to stand behind him, draping my arms around his shoulders. He tenses up, but doesn’t shrug me off. I look at his reflection in the glass and can see him watching me. "Lijah, I have to explain something to you, okay?"
"Okay," he agrees, leaning his head back so that it rests against my cheek. "Explain."
I take a deep breath. I’ve never told anybody this before, but he deserves to know, and I need to tell him.
"Three times," I begin. "I’ve been in love three times in my life. Chris, of course; you, who just appeared out of nowhere and burrowed through every one of my defences without me even noticing. And one other person, a long time ago, when I was younger than you are now."
"You make it sound as if you’re as old as Ian," he says, trying to sound amused and missing by a mile.
"Sometimes I feel that way," I answer, a little annoyed at the interruption, but not showing it. He feels it anyway, in the tension in my body or in some strange, unfathomable way, and he mutters an apology.
"He was a friend of the family," I continue. "Although I’d known him for years it was if one day I saw him for the first time, and I was completely lost. He humoured me ferociously, treating me as if I was the slightly annoying cousin, but I was determined to make him understand that I was the one for him, and in the end he relented …" I tail off, turning my head so that I can kiss Elijah’s temple. "Have you noticed that there’s a pattern developing? I dog people until they give in."
"Don’t do this to yourself," he mutters, pressing his lips against my forearm where it circles his chest. "You don’t have to tell me anything, it’s all right."
"So I fell in love," I continue, deliberately ignoring him, "and I dragged somebody else along with me as my unwilling lover, although he was good to me, even though deep down I knew he was always humouring me." I shrug. "It was over as quickly as it began. But the point I’m trying to make, Lijah, and failing pretty miserably, is that I’ve been where you are, I understand what it’s like to have to be mature about something when it’s not what you want to do."
"No, I don’t think you do." He says it so calmly, so quietly that for a second I’m fooled into thinking this will be all right. And then he pulls away from my arms and turns on me, furious and, I think, hurt.
"I wanted this as much as you - maybe even more! But I knew what I had to do, knew the rules I had to follow, and I did, because it meant I could be with you, sleep with you, just learn about you, you know? What I didn’t expect, what I never dreamed would happen, was this .." he gestures at the thin air. "I’m me, Sean, me. I’ve seen more shit in my life than you can imagine - yes, even you - and I don’t do this; I don’t fall in fucking love, because I know what will happen. I don’t let down my defences because I know that if I do that then I’ll get hurt. I know all this, Sean. All of it. And look at me! I was right. I fell in love, and now I don’t know how to climb back out."
His voice has taken on the funny, harsh quality it gets when he’s trying not to cry, so I’m not surprised when he pushes me out of his way and goes back to the couch, dropping onto it in an atypically graceless way. He keeps his back to me, but I see his hand go up to his face. And that’s when it hits me; all this talking we’ve been doing, all these words we’re hiding behind, are nothing. Nothing. At this point he isn’t a 1,000 year old soul in a youthful body, or any of the other facile things I’ve said about him. He’s just a 20 year old boy with a broken heart, trying to play by rules he doesn’t understand and never invented.
I go to him and pull him into my arms, although he resists briefly. I refuse to give up and with a sigh he folds against me, his hair tickling my chin and his breath moistening my chest. I close my eyes against the pain of this. Of losing this forever. I open my mouth to say something soothing and instead, listen as I say the one thing I promised myself I never would.
"I’m not giving this up, Elijah. I can’t be without you, not now. You’re as necessary to me as breathing. We’ll work it out, we will, I promise you.
"Chris…" he whispers, and goes no further. I can feel his hands fisting against me, clutching my shirt and then releasing it, steadily, rhythmically. He reminds me of a cat kneading flesh.
"She’ll understand," I reply. "Things won’t change. I need you both, Elijah, I can’t lose either of you."
"I don’t want to see you at premieres and awards and shit, and not be able to touch you," he says, his voice muffled as he moves his head so that his lips brush my throat. "You’re my friend and I don’t want to lose that. You were my friend before anything else happened."
"And I’m still your friend," I assure him. "We’ll always be friends, I promise you that. We’ll work it out."
"So I have to be the other woman, do I? I have to be the one sitting alone and hoping that you’ll come by and see me?"
"We’ll work it out," I say again, desperate for him to understand. The way he feels against me, in my arms, is right. He feels safe and he makes me feel safe.
He sighs. "I could be really noble here and say that it’s a stupid idea, that you should go back to Chris and forget about me, and I’ll go on and forget about you." He raises one hand so that his fingers are splayed against my throat. "But I can’t," he says, and there is such a wealth of sadness in that tone that I have to swallow against my self-hatred.
"It's all right," he says, obviously realising that I'm about to speak. "I wouldn't have it any other way.." he laughs sadly. "Okay, that's a lie, I'd have it a whole different way, but I'll have it this way."
"I'm so sorry, Lijah," I say, pulling him close. "I'm so sorry..."
"Don't be," he says, and he finally lifts his head, and I can see how much I've hurt him. He shakes his head slightly and then reaches up to kiss me. Warm and soft and inviting, just the same as ever, except that I can taste salt from the tears that he tried to hide. God, I love him so damn much! Moving together, we press closer, and his tongue flickers into my mouth, his arms going around me, his fingers sliding underneath my shirt and resting on my back. I hang onto him and fall backwards onto the couch, taking him with me so that he's lying on top of me, and our kiss doesn't break until I run out of air, and then he pushes himself up and looks at me, resting his chin on his fists.
"I'll take it," he says finally. "Because it's all I can do. I need you, I love you," he shrugs and his elbows dig into my chest. "It's not a happy ending, is it?" He dips his head and kisses my throat. "It's a compromise, but that's all right."
It's not, and I know it isn't, but I'm not brave, and I don't answer. Instead I tangle my hands in his hair and kiss him again until he's breathless and whimpering, and then I set myself to making this so good for him that he realises how much I need him. And when I have him naked under me, covering him and filling him, I lean close and tell him how I feel, tell him that he must never consider himself to be anything less than what he is.
After he comes, I realise that the trembling in his body isn't entirely from his release, but I don't speak; I let him do what he wants, which seems to involve touching me - kissing me and stroking me. I think he's memorising me, and that hurts.
And then that's all there is; there's no more time, so we both dress and stand awkwardly by the door, neither of us wanting to make that final move which will mark the end of the 15 months we have spent in our protective bubble. Out there, waiting for us, is the Real World and we can't pretend anymore. Fifteen months ago I met a weird and wonderful boy and now as I look at the weird and wonderful man standing in front of me, I begin to understand just what it is he's prepared to give me.
He humbles me.
*
We all stand in awkward silence waiting for the cars to take us to our various destinations, caught in the limbo when all the farewells have been said and all that's left is the horrible knowledge that a wonderful, special time is over. I'm standing close to Elijah, and I can see the tension in every line of his body. I don't know what to do; do I hug him again or do I let him deal with this? I look around and meet Dominic's knowing gaze. He nods and walks over to me.
"Told him to sling his hook, then?"
"It's not your affair," I tell him. There has always been a tension between us, sometimes flaring up into silly arguments, but most of the time left to simmer, hardly noticed. He grunts, not answering, but nor does he move away and we both glance over at Elijah who is standing slightly apart from the rest of the group, his eyes distant and introverted.
The words slip out without any conscious thought on my part. "Take care of him."
"Yes." It's all he says, but I hear a whole lot more.
"If he falls for you, Dom, you'll be a lucky man. Try and make him fall for you."
"I think his choice is made," Dominic replies. "It's all very noble and self sacrificing of you, but it won't happen." He shrugs. "Does he have any chance to be happy?"
"He'll have every chance that I can give him," I snap. "I'll make him happy."
"I told you once that if you did anything to hurt him then your life wouldn't be worth living. The only reason you've still got your gonads is because you never meant for this to happen. He deserves more than this, but for some reason it's what he's chosen."
My car chooses to arrive at that second, and I'm spared having to answer him. I throw my bags into the trunk and climb into the passenger seat. I try not to look back and nearly succeed, but I can't help it, and our eyes meet through the glass. He smiles and raises a hand to me, then blinks as I roll down the window.
"I'll see you soon, Lijah," I say with a promise in my voice.
"Yeah," he says. "I know."
I watch him until my eyes blur, and then I sit back and look through the windshield. I'll make this work; he's too precious to lose.
The End
I Carry Your Heart With Me
e e cummings
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
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