perpetual_motion (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
perpetual_motion) wrote2004-01-07 05:13 pm
perpetual_motion) wrote2004-01-07 05:13 pm
Entry tags:
Coffee-LOTR RPS (Sean A/Elijah) PG
WARNING! WARNING! SLASH ABOUT ACTUAL PEOPLE (NOT CHARACTERS) AHEAD! IF YOU DON'T LIKE, SKIP THIS POST!
Posted to a couple of LOTR RPS mailing lists, and now, it's my opening fic.
Disclaimer: I don't know these men. This is complete fiction.
Author's Note: Take note, this is a minor AU. I've got Sean divorced with no kids here because I got tired of dealing with the angst. Cheating, sure, but you get a story out of it. For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
beizy, just because. And in a pointless note, I think this is the longest LOTR RPS I've ever written.
Coffee
By Perpetual Motion
They go out for coffee after their first meeting that ended with them running and hugging each other like old friends who randomly ran into each other, and as they sit at a table with oversized mugs of overpriced coffee, Elijah takes notice of the thin white stripe where a ring had been comfortable until very recently on Sean's left hand.
Sean notices him looking and doesn't even glance down to answer. "My wife and I just finished divorcing."
Elijah gives a sympathy wince but doesn't apologize. He's never figured out why anyone says, 'Sorry to hear that', when they really probably don't care very much either way. He opts for a different question. "Was it a comfortable split?"
"Wasn't bad." Sean sips his coffee. "We were both just relieved that we only had to divide up property and not worry about custody over a kid or a dog or anything." He makes a face. "That sounds terrible."
"No, I get it." And he does. He remembers, ever so vaguely, his parents' divorce, and the yelling that insued. "At least if you're fighting over a table or a book, it won't get a complex and be in therapy for the rest of its life wondering why you yelled less for it and more for the cool lamp in the corner."
Sean laughs, and it's a little rusty from lack of recent use, but it feels good. "I guess so."
They sip their coffee and sit comfortably across from each other, like they're used to long silences and have done this before.
*
Their first night in New Zealand, Elijah hunts up a phone book, finds a coffee place, gets directions, and drags Sean, Dom, and Billy down the street to some hole-in-the-wall with lots of dark wood and a haze of cigarette smoke curling towards the ceiling. They crowd into a booth, Sean and Elijah on one side, Dom and Billy on the other. They're loud and obnoxious and down cup after cup of hot, dark, strong coffee, and eat danish and donuts and cookies until all four of them are ready to nod off from the massive sugar coma they've put themselves in. Somehow, they find the energy to at least get up and move outside, and they lounge around the entrance to the coffee place as Elijah lights a cigarette and props himself against the wall with his eyes closed.
"Those things will kill you." Sean's tone is conversational and holds no actual reprimand.
Elijah shrugs and doesn't open his eyes. "So will driving, flying, and walking naked in the cold, but that's not stopped me before."
Dom and Billy grin, and Billy raises his eyebrows. "Walk around naked in the cold a lot, eh? That what counts for the all-over shrinkage, then?" He laughs when Elijah gives him the finger. "You've got that thing aimed at Dom."
Elijah cracks open his eyes. "Sorry, Dom." He moves his hand four inches to the right so it's aimed at Billy. "There."
"I've been told." Halfway through his chuckle, Billy yawns. "I'm calling it a night. Anyone else?" Beside him, Dom nods and waves at Sean and Elijah as they head off down the street.
"Goodnight," Sean's voice is low, ptiched to accomdate the very late hour which it is, and he says nothing more as he leans against the wall next to Elijah and watches him smoke. His right hand moves to his left to fiddle with his wedding band, and he let's out an aggravated sigh when it's not there.
"You okay?" Elijah turns his head to look at Sean.
"Still trying to break an old habit." Sean waves his left hand in front of him. "Never used to be fidgety."
Elijah snorts. "Take up smoking. It helps." He glances across the street and sees a tattoo parlor with its lights still on. "Come on." He grabs Sean by the elbow and crosses the street, not bothering to look both ways because he's already picked up that Sean will do it for him.
They enter the tattoo parlor, and it's warm and comfortable, and there's a buzzing sound coming from behind a curtain that they both assume are tattoo needles. Elijah walks up to the counter, cigarette still in his mouth and looks at the display case. He pulls Sean forward and points. "That one looks about the right size."
Sean looks at the display at large, silver rings on velvet and shrugs. "I'm not sure any of those are really me."
"I bet there's one." Elijah crouches and looks at the bottom row of rings. "Found it." He taps the glass in front of a silver band that only has a few designs etched into it. Elijah straightens up and looks around for a clerk. He spots a girl near the back of the room with a nametag. "'Scuse me."
She looks up, half-bored and obviously thinking that they're just in there to browse. "Yeah?"
"I'd like to buy this ring." Elijah puts a hand on Sean's chest before he can interrupt. "It's a 'welcome to New Zealand, I hope we don't kill ourselves filming' gift."
Sean grins and hooks an arm around Elijah's neck. "Thanks."
"You're welcome."
*
At the end of the first week of pre-production, Dom, Billy, Sean, and Elijah have become 'the hobbits'.
"Could the hobbits get to dictation practice, please?"
"I need hobbits in costuming."
"If one more hobbit tugs my mohawk, I'm kicking some arse!" The last one is courtesy of Orlando, who stays true to his word and boots Dom in the ass when he runs by and gives it a tug. He further keeps his promise by tackling the other man and pinning him to the ground.
"Help! I'm getting raped by an elf!" Dom is laughing to hard to get the plea out in one full sentence, but his fellow hobbits come to his rescue and pull Orlando off him. They immediately treason by inviting Orlando to their hole-in-the-wall coffee place. Orlando agrees. Dom doesn't take it personally, and they all pile into a car together, so tightly packed, that Elijah ends up on Sean's lap.
"This is dangerous."
Elijah grins at Sean. "You should live dangerously once in a while. Makes food taste better."
"And what would you know about it?"
"I'm just reporting what Orlando keeps insisting. I haven't actually *tried* it yet."
Sean laughs, and as they go over a bump in the road, his arm wraps around Elijah's waist to keep him steady. He doesn't remove it when they're on level ground again, but neither of them seem to notice.
When they get to their coffee place, they pile out, Elijah first, and head in. Sean watches Elijah put a cigarette in his mouth and pat himself down for a lighter. He's learned already that Elijah can't keep up with a lighter if the world depends on it, so he reaches into his pocket for the disposable one that he picked up in the hotel gift shop, and holds it out, flame already lit.
Elijah leans in and gets the light. "Thanks." He inhales.
"Those things will kill you."
"I'm tough."
Sean grins and keeps ahold of Elijah's elbow as they thread through the crowd and find a booth way in back. They sit, Sean and Elijah on one side, Dom and Billy on the other, Orlando stealing a chair from the next table and straddling it backwards, and then they order up coffee and danish and donuts and cookies and settle in to start a long sugar-haul.
Somewhere between their fourth and fifth coffee, and in the same vicinity of their millionth sugared food, Elijah starts to nod off. Sean pulls his arm up and around the back of the booth and gives the back of Elijah's collar a tug. "You want to head out?"
"Nah. I'm good. Like the atmosphere." Elijah lists towards Sean and ends up with his head on the other man's shoulder. "Don't let me ruin the fun." He means it, and the others take it to heart and keep talking and laughing well after Elijah falls asleep on Sean's shoulder.
When they finally call it quits, the others offer to help Sean get Elijah up and moving back to the hotel. Sean waves them off. "Go ahead. We'll catch up. I can get him moving."
"You sure?" Dom raises his eyebrows when he asks the question.
"He weighs a pound. If all else fails, I'll carry him."
The other three chuckle and say their goodnights, and Sean stays where he is for a moment, watching a woman halfway across the room as she sweeps up the floor. He cranes his head around until he can find a clock and decides that if there's any hope of either he or Elijah getting up the next day, they'll have to get moving now. He nudges Elijah's shoulder. "Lij."
Elijah snaps awake, eyes open, if a little bleary, and blinks a few times. "Yeah."
"We should get back."
Elijah looks around, trying to figure out where the hell he is. "Oh, coffee place. Did I nod off?"
"Yeah?"
"How long?"
"Forty-five minutes, I guess." Sean nudges Elijah with his knee to get him to slide out of the booth, he follows, and does a full-body stretch as he finally gets a chance to stand up. "Can you make it back to the hotel?"
"Yeah." Elijah yawns and pats himself down for his cigarettes. He finds one and sticks it in his mouth, waving away the lighter Sean holds in his hand. "Just want to carry it for a minute."
Sean shrugs and tucks the lighter away again. "All right."
"Why are you carrying around a lighter for me, anyway?"
"You can't keep track of one."
Elijah has to agree that's true. He's notorious for losing small objects, and he hopes he never misplaces the prop ring that Peter was showing him earlier. "I can always pick one up somewhere."
"And lose it again." Sean grins and slides his arm around Elijah's neck, a little more intimately than a week ago, but neither of them notice the change as they walk out the door.
*
It's three months into the shoot before Sean realizes that something's a bit off. He has a feeling like he's being watched, and when he turns around, Viggo is standing ten feet away with a camera, but his eyes are past Sean. Sean turns back around, and he sees Elijah actively watching him as he sits in the grass and reads his book between takes. Elijah grins at him, and Sean waves him over, making his place with some torn bit of paper that was probably from one of his scripts.
Elijah walks over and flops onto the grass like he's boneless. He lies back and puts his head on Sean's thigh. "Hi."
Sean pushes the wig-hair off Elijah's face and leans back a little. "Hey. What are you up to?"
"Waiting." Elijah shifts a little in the grass and reaches under himself to dislodge a rock that is pressed painfully against his thigh. "What are you reading?"
"_The Poisonwood Bible_. Chris recommended it to me numerous times before we got divorced, and she e-mailed me the other day and told me to get my lazy ass up and read it if I was going to bitch about all the time I had between takes."
"You're talking to her now?"
Sean shrugs. "Not about anything important, but I can finish an e-mail to her without deleting it and giving up."
"That's good." Elijah strokes the grass next to him like its a cat and stares up at the sky around Sean's head. "Is it a good book?"
"I've barely begun, but it's not bad." Sean picks his book back up. "Want to hear some of it?" He's learned over the last few months, that sometimes Elijah likes to sit and listen while stuff is read. It calms him down.
"Yeah." Elijah snuggles in a little closer and closes his eyes, the better to concentrate as Sean reads the story.
*
It's four days later that Sean remembers the way Viggo was watching Elijah watch him, and he stops the other man as they both leave the catering tent and asks him in a low voice what he got a picture of. Viggo offers to show him and leads him to his trailer, where he picks up a stack of photographs, flips through, and pulls out three prints, which he hands to Sean.
Sean takes them and feels like he's been punched in the stomach when he sees the first one. It's an angled shot, so that he and Eijah are both in the picture. Sean sits on the grass in his costume reading his book, and Elijah stands not very far away watching Sean like he's a creature not to be spooked. The look on his face Sean isn't sure he can even believe. No one's ever looked at him like that, he's nearly sure of it, and he wonders what it can mean. There's so much wanting in it.
He looks at the next picture, and it's a close-up of Elijah's face. He's biting his bottom lip and the want is even clearer up close. The tendons in his neck are standing out like he's straining for something, or possibly against it, and Sean wonders what Elijah could possibly be straining against while looking at him.
The last picture is of the two of them as they spent that particular break in filming. Elijah's head is on Sean's thigh, and Sean has his book open, obviously reading aloud to a very delighted looking Elijah.
Sean blinks a few times before holding the pictures back out to Viggo. He isn't sure what to say.
"You can keep those, if you'd like. I have other copies." Viggo puts a hand on Sean's shoulder and gives it a squeeze.
"I-thank you." Sean wants to refuse them, because if he doesn't have them where he can see them, then they might not be real, but he has them, and he's seen them, and he can't convince himself otherwise even with the pictures far away from him. He tucks them into his costume and leaves Viggo's trailer with a barely discernable 'thank you'.
When he gets outside, he knows exactly where Elijah is. Some horribly loud music is coming from his trailer, and while Elijah never seems to remember to turn it down when he's in there, he never forgets to turn it off when he leaves.
Sean lets himself into the trailer and finds Elijah lying on the bed, tapping his baggied feet together to the supposed beat of the music. "Lij." He doesn't speak particularly loudly, but Lij's eyes open and he smiles. Sean walks over to him, and finds the remote in the rumple of covers. He turns the stereo down.
"Hey, Seanie." Elijah props himself up on his elbows and his brow furrows as he notices the way that Sean is having trouble smiling at him. "What's up?"
"I-Vi-" Sean can't think of a decent way to start, so he finally just hands the pictures over. "Viggo took these," is the only thing he can actually say. He watches as Elijah flips through the pictures, and notices when he realizes the implications. Elijah flushes, and Sean reaches out a hand to touch his arm. "They're telling."
Elijah nods once. "Yeah." He can't seem to look away from the one of he and Sean on the grass together. "I thought I was hiding it pretty well."
"I didn't notice." And Sean really hadn't. And he could kick himself for it. Elijah-God, Elijah deserved to be noticed whenever possible. Especially by Sean, who's been noticing Elijah from the first second they met, but has been a little better at hiding it. He presses his finger to the inside of Elijah's arm. "Are you okay?"
"I'm cool." Elijah puts the pictures on the edge of the bedside table. "Little embarassed, I guess."
"Why?" Sean lets go of Elijah's arm and reaches out to tilt his chin up. Elijah's eyes are wide open in every sense, and the want is there even stronger than it was in the picture. Sean feels like he's been skewered, and he tries to breathe deep. "Elijah?"
"I want you." Elijah clenches his fingers in the bedsheets. "There. It's been said." He watches as Sean just stares at him. "Seanie? Could you possibly say something?"
Sean doesn't think he can, because the way Elijah's just said those words is making his entire body feel like half-melted Jell-o. He's not sure if he's solid or not. "Lij." It's all he can manage for a few seconds. He leans in a little and feels Elijah's body heat bounce off him. "I want you, too."
"Thank fuck."
Sean smiles at the actue Elijah-ness of that statement and pulls on the arm he's still holding. "Come here." Elijah wriggles his way down the bed, and Sean places a kiss to his temple. When Elijah turns his head and tilts his chin up, Sean takes the invitation and kisses him on the mouth. It's sweet, and careful, and it's the best first kiss Sean can ever remember having. He feels Elijah's hands on his knees, and slides his hand down Elijah's arm to wrap their fingers together. They kiss for minutes before a sudden knock on the door pulls them apart.
"What?" Elijah rolls his eyes at the noise, but doesn't let go of Sean's hand. When Dom and Billy pile into the trailer, Elijah tightens his grip as Sean tries to pull away.
Billy grins and holds up a take-away tray of coffee in tall cardboard cups. "One of the lights blew. We've got time to waste. Coffee?" Billy holds out the tray so Elijah and Sean can get their cups. He notices their hands together on the bedspread and nudges Dom.
"What?" Dom has been flipping through Elijah's CDs, and when he sees what Billy's poking him about, he grins. "Nice job, guys."
Elijah and Sean look at each other and smile as they drink their coffee.
Posted to a couple of LOTR RPS mailing lists, and now, it's my opening fic.
Disclaimer: I don't know these men. This is complete fiction.
Author's Note: Take note, this is a minor AU. I've got Sean divorced with no kids here because I got tired of dealing with the angst. Cheating, sure, but you get a story out of it. For
beizy, just because. And in a pointless note, I think this is the longest LOTR RPS I've ever written.Coffee
By Perpetual Motion
They go out for coffee after their first meeting that ended with them running and hugging each other like old friends who randomly ran into each other, and as they sit at a table with oversized mugs of overpriced coffee, Elijah takes notice of the thin white stripe where a ring had been comfortable until very recently on Sean's left hand.
Sean notices him looking and doesn't even glance down to answer. "My wife and I just finished divorcing."
Elijah gives a sympathy wince but doesn't apologize. He's never figured out why anyone says, 'Sorry to hear that', when they really probably don't care very much either way. He opts for a different question. "Was it a comfortable split?"
"Wasn't bad." Sean sips his coffee. "We were both just relieved that we only had to divide up property and not worry about custody over a kid or a dog or anything." He makes a face. "That sounds terrible."
"No, I get it." And he does. He remembers, ever so vaguely, his parents' divorce, and the yelling that insued. "At least if you're fighting over a table or a book, it won't get a complex and be in therapy for the rest of its life wondering why you yelled less for it and more for the cool lamp in the corner."
Sean laughs, and it's a little rusty from lack of recent use, but it feels good. "I guess so."
They sip their coffee and sit comfortably across from each other, like they're used to long silences and have done this before.
*
Their first night in New Zealand, Elijah hunts up a phone book, finds a coffee place, gets directions, and drags Sean, Dom, and Billy down the street to some hole-in-the-wall with lots of dark wood and a haze of cigarette smoke curling towards the ceiling. They crowd into a booth, Sean and Elijah on one side, Dom and Billy on the other. They're loud and obnoxious and down cup after cup of hot, dark, strong coffee, and eat danish and donuts and cookies until all four of them are ready to nod off from the massive sugar coma they've put themselves in. Somehow, they find the energy to at least get up and move outside, and they lounge around the entrance to the coffee place as Elijah lights a cigarette and props himself against the wall with his eyes closed.
"Those things will kill you." Sean's tone is conversational and holds no actual reprimand.
Elijah shrugs and doesn't open his eyes. "So will driving, flying, and walking naked in the cold, but that's not stopped me before."
Dom and Billy grin, and Billy raises his eyebrows. "Walk around naked in the cold a lot, eh? That what counts for the all-over shrinkage, then?" He laughs when Elijah gives him the finger. "You've got that thing aimed at Dom."
Elijah cracks open his eyes. "Sorry, Dom." He moves his hand four inches to the right so it's aimed at Billy. "There."
"I've been told." Halfway through his chuckle, Billy yawns. "I'm calling it a night. Anyone else?" Beside him, Dom nods and waves at Sean and Elijah as they head off down the street.
"Goodnight," Sean's voice is low, ptiched to accomdate the very late hour which it is, and he says nothing more as he leans against the wall next to Elijah and watches him smoke. His right hand moves to his left to fiddle with his wedding band, and he let's out an aggravated sigh when it's not there.
"You okay?" Elijah turns his head to look at Sean.
"Still trying to break an old habit." Sean waves his left hand in front of him. "Never used to be fidgety."
Elijah snorts. "Take up smoking. It helps." He glances across the street and sees a tattoo parlor with its lights still on. "Come on." He grabs Sean by the elbow and crosses the street, not bothering to look both ways because he's already picked up that Sean will do it for him.
They enter the tattoo parlor, and it's warm and comfortable, and there's a buzzing sound coming from behind a curtain that they both assume are tattoo needles. Elijah walks up to the counter, cigarette still in his mouth and looks at the display case. He pulls Sean forward and points. "That one looks about the right size."
Sean looks at the display at large, silver rings on velvet and shrugs. "I'm not sure any of those are really me."
"I bet there's one." Elijah crouches and looks at the bottom row of rings. "Found it." He taps the glass in front of a silver band that only has a few designs etched into it. Elijah straightens up and looks around for a clerk. He spots a girl near the back of the room with a nametag. "'Scuse me."
She looks up, half-bored and obviously thinking that they're just in there to browse. "Yeah?"
"I'd like to buy this ring." Elijah puts a hand on Sean's chest before he can interrupt. "It's a 'welcome to New Zealand, I hope we don't kill ourselves filming' gift."
Sean grins and hooks an arm around Elijah's neck. "Thanks."
"You're welcome."
*
At the end of the first week of pre-production, Dom, Billy, Sean, and Elijah have become 'the hobbits'.
"Could the hobbits get to dictation practice, please?"
"I need hobbits in costuming."
"If one more hobbit tugs my mohawk, I'm kicking some arse!" The last one is courtesy of Orlando, who stays true to his word and boots Dom in the ass when he runs by and gives it a tug. He further keeps his promise by tackling the other man and pinning him to the ground.
"Help! I'm getting raped by an elf!" Dom is laughing to hard to get the plea out in one full sentence, but his fellow hobbits come to his rescue and pull Orlando off him. They immediately treason by inviting Orlando to their hole-in-the-wall coffee place. Orlando agrees. Dom doesn't take it personally, and they all pile into a car together, so tightly packed, that Elijah ends up on Sean's lap.
"This is dangerous."
Elijah grins at Sean. "You should live dangerously once in a while. Makes food taste better."
"And what would you know about it?"
"I'm just reporting what Orlando keeps insisting. I haven't actually *tried* it yet."
Sean laughs, and as they go over a bump in the road, his arm wraps around Elijah's waist to keep him steady. He doesn't remove it when they're on level ground again, but neither of them seem to notice.
When they get to their coffee place, they pile out, Elijah first, and head in. Sean watches Elijah put a cigarette in his mouth and pat himself down for a lighter. He's learned already that Elijah can't keep up with a lighter if the world depends on it, so he reaches into his pocket for the disposable one that he picked up in the hotel gift shop, and holds it out, flame already lit.
Elijah leans in and gets the light. "Thanks." He inhales.
"Those things will kill you."
"I'm tough."
Sean grins and keeps ahold of Elijah's elbow as they thread through the crowd and find a booth way in back. They sit, Sean and Elijah on one side, Dom and Billy on the other, Orlando stealing a chair from the next table and straddling it backwards, and then they order up coffee and danish and donuts and cookies and settle in to start a long sugar-haul.
Somewhere between their fourth and fifth coffee, and in the same vicinity of their millionth sugared food, Elijah starts to nod off. Sean pulls his arm up and around the back of the booth and gives the back of Elijah's collar a tug. "You want to head out?"
"Nah. I'm good. Like the atmosphere." Elijah lists towards Sean and ends up with his head on the other man's shoulder. "Don't let me ruin the fun." He means it, and the others take it to heart and keep talking and laughing well after Elijah falls asleep on Sean's shoulder.
When they finally call it quits, the others offer to help Sean get Elijah up and moving back to the hotel. Sean waves them off. "Go ahead. We'll catch up. I can get him moving."
"You sure?" Dom raises his eyebrows when he asks the question.
"He weighs a pound. If all else fails, I'll carry him."
The other three chuckle and say their goodnights, and Sean stays where he is for a moment, watching a woman halfway across the room as she sweeps up the floor. He cranes his head around until he can find a clock and decides that if there's any hope of either he or Elijah getting up the next day, they'll have to get moving now. He nudges Elijah's shoulder. "Lij."
Elijah snaps awake, eyes open, if a little bleary, and blinks a few times. "Yeah."
"We should get back."
Elijah looks around, trying to figure out where the hell he is. "Oh, coffee place. Did I nod off?"
"Yeah?"
"How long?"
"Forty-five minutes, I guess." Sean nudges Elijah with his knee to get him to slide out of the booth, he follows, and does a full-body stretch as he finally gets a chance to stand up. "Can you make it back to the hotel?"
"Yeah." Elijah yawns and pats himself down for his cigarettes. He finds one and sticks it in his mouth, waving away the lighter Sean holds in his hand. "Just want to carry it for a minute."
Sean shrugs and tucks the lighter away again. "All right."
"Why are you carrying around a lighter for me, anyway?"
"You can't keep track of one."
Elijah has to agree that's true. He's notorious for losing small objects, and he hopes he never misplaces the prop ring that Peter was showing him earlier. "I can always pick one up somewhere."
"And lose it again." Sean grins and slides his arm around Elijah's neck, a little more intimately than a week ago, but neither of them notice the change as they walk out the door.
*
It's three months into the shoot before Sean realizes that something's a bit off. He has a feeling like he's being watched, and when he turns around, Viggo is standing ten feet away with a camera, but his eyes are past Sean. Sean turns back around, and he sees Elijah actively watching him as he sits in the grass and reads his book between takes. Elijah grins at him, and Sean waves him over, making his place with some torn bit of paper that was probably from one of his scripts.
Elijah walks over and flops onto the grass like he's boneless. He lies back and puts his head on Sean's thigh. "Hi."
Sean pushes the wig-hair off Elijah's face and leans back a little. "Hey. What are you up to?"
"Waiting." Elijah shifts a little in the grass and reaches under himself to dislodge a rock that is pressed painfully against his thigh. "What are you reading?"
"_The Poisonwood Bible_. Chris recommended it to me numerous times before we got divorced, and she e-mailed me the other day and told me to get my lazy ass up and read it if I was going to bitch about all the time I had between takes."
"You're talking to her now?"
Sean shrugs. "Not about anything important, but I can finish an e-mail to her without deleting it and giving up."
"That's good." Elijah strokes the grass next to him like its a cat and stares up at the sky around Sean's head. "Is it a good book?"
"I've barely begun, but it's not bad." Sean picks his book back up. "Want to hear some of it?" He's learned over the last few months, that sometimes Elijah likes to sit and listen while stuff is read. It calms him down.
"Yeah." Elijah snuggles in a little closer and closes his eyes, the better to concentrate as Sean reads the story.
*
It's four days later that Sean remembers the way Viggo was watching Elijah watch him, and he stops the other man as they both leave the catering tent and asks him in a low voice what he got a picture of. Viggo offers to show him and leads him to his trailer, where he picks up a stack of photographs, flips through, and pulls out three prints, which he hands to Sean.
Sean takes them and feels like he's been punched in the stomach when he sees the first one. It's an angled shot, so that he and Eijah are both in the picture. Sean sits on the grass in his costume reading his book, and Elijah stands not very far away watching Sean like he's a creature not to be spooked. The look on his face Sean isn't sure he can even believe. No one's ever looked at him like that, he's nearly sure of it, and he wonders what it can mean. There's so much wanting in it.
He looks at the next picture, and it's a close-up of Elijah's face. He's biting his bottom lip and the want is even clearer up close. The tendons in his neck are standing out like he's straining for something, or possibly against it, and Sean wonders what Elijah could possibly be straining against while looking at him.
The last picture is of the two of them as they spent that particular break in filming. Elijah's head is on Sean's thigh, and Sean has his book open, obviously reading aloud to a very delighted looking Elijah.
Sean blinks a few times before holding the pictures back out to Viggo. He isn't sure what to say.
"You can keep those, if you'd like. I have other copies." Viggo puts a hand on Sean's shoulder and gives it a squeeze.
"I-thank you." Sean wants to refuse them, because if he doesn't have them where he can see them, then they might not be real, but he has them, and he's seen them, and he can't convince himself otherwise even with the pictures far away from him. He tucks them into his costume and leaves Viggo's trailer with a barely discernable 'thank you'.
When he gets outside, he knows exactly where Elijah is. Some horribly loud music is coming from his trailer, and while Elijah never seems to remember to turn it down when he's in there, he never forgets to turn it off when he leaves.
Sean lets himself into the trailer and finds Elijah lying on the bed, tapping his baggied feet together to the supposed beat of the music. "Lij." He doesn't speak particularly loudly, but Lij's eyes open and he smiles. Sean walks over to him, and finds the remote in the rumple of covers. He turns the stereo down.
"Hey, Seanie." Elijah props himself up on his elbows and his brow furrows as he notices the way that Sean is having trouble smiling at him. "What's up?"
"I-Vi-" Sean can't think of a decent way to start, so he finally just hands the pictures over. "Viggo took these," is the only thing he can actually say. He watches as Elijah flips through the pictures, and notices when he realizes the implications. Elijah flushes, and Sean reaches out a hand to touch his arm. "They're telling."
Elijah nods once. "Yeah." He can't seem to look away from the one of he and Sean on the grass together. "I thought I was hiding it pretty well."
"I didn't notice." And Sean really hadn't. And he could kick himself for it. Elijah-God, Elijah deserved to be noticed whenever possible. Especially by Sean, who's been noticing Elijah from the first second they met, but has been a little better at hiding it. He presses his finger to the inside of Elijah's arm. "Are you okay?"
"I'm cool." Elijah puts the pictures on the edge of the bedside table. "Little embarassed, I guess."
"Why?" Sean lets go of Elijah's arm and reaches out to tilt his chin up. Elijah's eyes are wide open in every sense, and the want is there even stronger than it was in the picture. Sean feels like he's been skewered, and he tries to breathe deep. "Elijah?"
"I want you." Elijah clenches his fingers in the bedsheets. "There. It's been said." He watches as Sean just stares at him. "Seanie? Could you possibly say something?"
Sean doesn't think he can, because the way Elijah's just said those words is making his entire body feel like half-melted Jell-o. He's not sure if he's solid or not. "Lij." It's all he can manage for a few seconds. He leans in a little and feels Elijah's body heat bounce off him. "I want you, too."
"Thank fuck."
Sean smiles at the actue Elijah-ness of that statement and pulls on the arm he's still holding. "Come here." Elijah wriggles his way down the bed, and Sean places a kiss to his temple. When Elijah turns his head and tilts his chin up, Sean takes the invitation and kisses him on the mouth. It's sweet, and careful, and it's the best first kiss Sean can ever remember having. He feels Elijah's hands on his knees, and slides his hand down Elijah's arm to wrap their fingers together. They kiss for minutes before a sudden knock on the door pulls them apart.
"What?" Elijah rolls his eyes at the noise, but doesn't let go of Sean's hand. When Dom and Billy pile into the trailer, Elijah tightens his grip as Sean tries to pull away.
Billy grins and holds up a take-away tray of coffee in tall cardboard cups. "One of the lights blew. We've got time to waste. Coffee?" Billy holds out the tray so Elijah and Sean can get their cups. He notices their hands together on the bedspread and nudges Dom.
"What?" Dom has been flipping through Elijah's CDs, and when he sees what Billy's poking him about, he grins. "Nice job, guys."
Elijah and Sean look at each other and smile as they drink their coffee.
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