Goodbye

by Nienor

Sean feels old.

He's only in his early thirties, but today he feels like he's a hundred.

He looks at Elijah's hair and secretly thinks it's an abomination; he looks at Elijah's face and sees the baby-fat melting off it, leaving behind a strange, unfamiliar, fey creature in place of the boy he remembers. They had a hard time, in the pick-ups last summer, getting Elijah to look enough like Frodo. The audience will be able to tell which shots came late, and that made Peter fret.

Elijah is turning into a man, but his laugh is still a boy's. It's for the audience now, that laugh. There's none left for Sean.

Sean sits back and feels the weight of Sam on his bones-- it isn't coming off easily this time-- and the weight of congestion on his chest and the weight of depression on his mind and he knows he isn't sparkling like he should, but he can't quite bring himself to care.

Elijah laughs, animated, next to him, his focus completely outward, completely turned away from Sean towards the fans, pouring out energy for them like he'll never run out.

The fans are always there, always, and they always need. Sean shifts in his chair. They need so much it sucks him dry on a regular basis, until there's not enough fake enthusiasm in the world to pour into the pit, even though sometimes a drop is all it takes to mean so much to just one more eager face.

Sean needs too, but Elijah's enthusiasm today is all reserved for strangers. Sean keeps his expression amiable and interested; he mouths the right words when the questions turn to him, but his heart isn't there.

When Elijah greeted him this weekend, it was a carefully calculated show meant to divert the hordes, not an affectionate greeting for a friend. That's the biz, after all.

Sean sits back when he can and lets Elijah talk, feeling the weight of his wedding ring resting in its accustomed place on his hand. Fraught, that. You couldn't ask a symbol to carry any more meaning than this one.

Today it isn't this small golden prison, however, that is dragging him down to his knees and leaving him crawling. Today it's Elijah's remote little smile and the fans firing off the same fucking questions over and over and the inevitable array of water bottles on the table and the feel of unhealthy fever-sweat gathering in his armpits and the popping of a million flashbulbs and the lopsided unfriendly smirk on Dom's face last night just before he and Elijah vanished off somewhere together, pointedly ditching Sean.

Sean reaches for a bottle of water and tests the safety seal with his thumb before he opens the cap and takes a sip. Even bottled water tastes funny through a cold: metallic and flat. He stifles the instinct to reach and take a second and unscrew its cap and press it into Elijah's hand so he'll stay hydrated. It wouldn't be welcome, not even if he didn't have more than his fair share of germs to spread. He can almost hear Dom say it, if he listens. "Elijah doesn't need your fucking help any more, thanks very much, Sean." He can almost hear Mack's voice over the phone. "Elijah's busy. Can I take a message?" No more "He'll call you back." Not lately.

The fans, sharp-eyed and inescapable, might always have the same questions, but they're right about one thing. Elijah is sailing off into another world on a Dom-shaped boat and Sean's been left standing on the shore with a wife and kids to turn back to and a ring on his finger that he couldn't toss away when the time was right.

He smiles a little to cover the twisting of his face, and looks to check his watch. Maybe Elijah has enough charisma to keep everybody's eyes fixed on his face; most of the fans won't see Sean is fidgeting to be gone.

After another ten minutes, after another thousand empty words, it's finally time for goodbye. The staff starts stirring; Sean tosses a wave to the crowd as he stands. Elijah is still giving it up even on the way out, open and bright to everyone but Sean.

Sean can't ever help himself, drawn to that flame like a moth to its own immolation, but he knows enough now that he keeps it in check.

He doesn't quite touch Elijah as the handlers herd them away; not quite, just a nudge against his jacket, just a corralling motion of his hands. Just crowding him, like it always is now: him crowding Elijah.

He turns his face away so that no cameras will capture the loss that is written there.

-finis-

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